Hi, remember in 90s some OS like BeOS, QNX and some linux dristros that can reside inside fat partition and boot directly from DOS
Anyone knows another OS to test? thabnks
FWIW: It's not a "full OS" which I think is what you're looking for, but there is "Network Enhanced Operating System" which builds on-top of DOS:
- Dave ; https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ; "Daves Old Computers" ; SW dev addict best known:
ImageDisk: rd/wr ANY floppy PChardware can ; Micro-C: compiler for DOS+ManySmallCPU ; DDLINK: simple/small FileTrans(w/o netSW)via Lan/Lpt/Serial
There's dosminix.
The only distro I ever met that was easy to do that with was an old one called "Monkey Linux" which used UMSDOS filesystem on top of a FAT drive. From DOS you'd use LoadLin to boot it. Don't think it goes back to DOS gracefully though, needs a warm boot. That distribution was about 20MB in size, based on slackware, and was available on the web as a zip file which you just unzipped to DOS root and there it was. Only needed 386 and a full 4MB (Some boards reserving 384k HMA wouldn't boot it) but 8Mb was preferable if you wanted to get into X. (Window, not twitter)
edit: Though I believe it was also possible to install Slackware onto a UMSDOS filesystem, but even being careful with options you would need some 200Mb of space, then again you could load it with loadlin, specifying the kernel filename. The result then was a more full system, but took more space, more involved to install (particularly due to typos in many slackware config files)
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
