First post, by FrankDM
Hello
So I have a few of these really old Wyse Winterm 9455xl thin client machines. I wanted to have some fun with them and install some OS's that are a little different than the usual Windows or Dos. To that end I figured I do one with Ubuntu (Lucid as these machines do not support the cmov command), one with OS/2 Warp and an easy one with MSDos6.22 but running the Breadbox Ensemble 4.1.2 shell.
Now I started with the Ubuntu one, this went fine, put in the disk with the iso image, install (which takes forever) and presto it boots in something resembling a system I can operate.
Next one was going to be really easy, I kept OS/2 for last and went for a quicky on DOS. That quicky turned into the neverending story.. I just cannot get Dos 6.22 working... There is some kind of ROM on this ITX motherboard that has a tool of the devil called "Grub". I never heard of it but it became the bane of my last two week existence. See I can install DOS just fine using my trusty 3 disks. It takes about 90 minutes to install on this but it does install... after installation for what should be first boot this Grub thing decides to intervene and proclaim:
error: unknown filesystem
after which it throws me into a "grub rescue" prompt. It fails to understand that I do not need any rescuing, I am doing great, I just installed DOS and all I want to see is a nice cozy C: prompt. Nothing more, nothing less. Ripping the hard drive out of its cozy environment to my sterile testbench reveales that DOS as it should created its 2GB FAT partition inside a void of unpartitioned emptiness. I also tried installing ubuntu first, giving it its own linux partition and then installing DOS afterwards to identical results.
I have no clue why this Grub grabs so much of my free time, I want it gone but fear it is hard soldered on my motherboard.. I guess I need it to just play nice but I have no tricks to teach this decades old dog. Maybe one of you veterans can tell me what on earth I am doing wrong and how I can get my sanity back. Thank you!