<div>On 10/31/07, Karen Lewellen <<a href="mailto:klewellen@shellworld.net">klewellen@shellworld.net</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> out of curiosity, How would this same question be answered if the goal is a Dos / Linux machine instead of a windows Linus one? Including the most favorable debtors? I too am likely to use a fat 32 partition, but wonder about the rest of the wisdom. Karen</blockquote><div> DOS apps run fine on FAT32 partitions. But you may hit problems depending on the version of DOS you use. What you'd need is a version of DOS that supports long file names. Otherwise, if you create long filenames in Linux, those files will get their names truncated to 8.3 lengths if you open and save them in DOS. And Linux can handle much longer pathnames than DOS. Some DOS apps won't be able to read directories with long pathnames. I've forgotten the character lengths involved (it's been years since I used DOS), but it's far shorter even than in Windows. And there are some unruly Windows apps whose installers create longer pathnames than older DOS versions can handle. IIRC, Firefox is one. I haven't tried DOSemu, but it might be a better solution for you. You wouldn't have to dual boot that way and can have DOS and Linux apps running simultaneously. The DOSemu documentation page is here. < <a href="http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/docs/">http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/docs/</a>>. They warn that the documentation is pretty sparse. You should also be able to run DOS apps under Wine on Linux, which also allows you to run a lot of Windows apps. But again, I haven't tried running DOS apps under Wine. FreeDOS supports file names and can run stand-alone or in DOSemu. <<a href="http://www.freedos.org/freedos/about/">http://www.freedos.org/freedos/about/</a>>. There is also OpenDOS (formerly known as DR DOS), which is free for non-commercial use. < <a href="http://www.deltasoft.com/opendos.htm">http://www.deltasoft.com/opendos.htm</a>> It will run on Linux under WABI. One advantage of OpenDOS is that you can use 4DOS with it, which gives you a lot of the features of the KORN shell. 4DOS is great, makes DOS much easier and more powerful to use. Particularly useful if you're into fairly complex batch scripting. If you're into very complex scripting, you can extend 4DOS even further using REXX, or at least you used to be able to do so. I used it on one project. But I'm not sure you could still find a version compiled for DOS. REXX is now open source, but I don't see any binary downloads for DOS. < <a href="http://www.oorexx.org/download.html">http://www.oorexx.org/download.html</a>>. I used the combination of DR DOS and 4DOS for many years, wouldn't run DOS again without it. 4DOS is now free and is still being maintained. < <a href="http://www.4dos.hit.bg/">http://www.4dos.hit.bg/</a>>. The very last DOS I would choose is MS DOS. Buggy and far more limited than other distributions of DOS. Full disclosure: I have a bad attitude about Microsoft. Hope this helps, Marbux </div></div>BUCK "MARBUX" MARTIN Director of Legal Affairs OpenDocument Foundation Contact: <<a href="http://www.opendocumentfoundation.us/contact.htm"> http://www.opendocumentfoundation.us/contact.htm</a>> Charter member, Two Guys without a Garage, <<a href="http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/10/cracks-in-foundation.html">http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/10/cracks-in-foundation.html </a>> -- Universal Interop Now!