Hi everyone,

Is there anyone using the kernel 2.4.x with UMSDOS?
I need to know if this is safe and any other positive
or negative experiences. Thanks in advance.

Someone else may feel free to correct me here.

But, my first thought in regard to UMSDOS would be that any FAT type file system does not support any of the security or Rockridge extensions. No concept of file ownership or rights. In addition, if this volume were to be shared with an MS system then high probability of file name corruption. MS systems do not even understand the difference between upper and lower case. Everything is forced uppercase. I can understand a shared data volume perhaps, but I would not want to trust my root file system on it.

My 2 cents.

I doubt many people are using UMSDOS unless they're just trying Linux for the first time. I haven't used it since the 2.0 kernel days, but as far as I know it should still work with no problems.

Its advantages are that you don't need to repartition or reformat your harddrive, and can in fact run Linux in your existing Windows partition.
You can also use your existing Windows/DOS tools for disk repair and defragmentation.

Its disadvantages are that it's slower than a native file system, it takes up more disk space for the same files, and there's no option for a journalling file system. There are also advanced system options, such as the LVM, which probably won't work with UMSDOS.

It does support full Linux file permissions and ownership, though those are (of course) bypassed if you boot into Windows/DOS.

James Dixon

thanks Excalibur and jdixon for your feedback. I took the
bull by the horns and just completed installation of
Slackware 8.0, with kernl 2.2.19 and now I am typing this
reply after completing compilation of the natsemi driver and
other required setups. I used Partition Magic to define my
partitions and Linux had no problem identifying them. Of course, I decided not to use UMSDOS even though I also have
Slack 7.0 running and using UMSDOS, in another partition.

Yeepee, I am a happy camper! Now I am biginning to see why
Slackware is such a solid product. Now if I can only get the
pinguin to bring me a beer....:-)

This issue is closed. Thanks everyone.