Re: Where are ms-dos filenames for Debian packages?

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (robert)]

Hi.

Do you know of any efforts to make a UMSDOS system for Debian?  If not,
do you know of any ways to fool the installation process so that it can?
(For example, saying that you're going to install to a particular drive,
but shell out before the installation copies to the drive and umount it
and remount it pointing to the DOS partition, maybe?)

 > Date: 1999/03/02
 > Author: John Lines <http://www.aeat.co.uk/~John.Lines>
 > 
 > > I read somewhere that dpkg can handle "mangled" filenames because it
 > looks
 > > inside the package to determine if it is the correct version. Is
 > dpkg what
 > > I need to be learning to use?
 > >
 > 
 > It is certainly worth knowing how to use dpkg directly for one-off
 > operations.
 > 
 > >
 > > CD-ROM is not an option. Modem is not an option. Are files in my
 > > /hda3/debian (which is my Windows 3.1 c:\debian directory) an
 > option?
 > > That's where I rejoined the perl_5.004.04-6.deb file tht I'm trying
 > to
 > > install.
 > >
 > > Thanks for the on-list and off-list suggestions I've already
 > received. The
 > > idea about changing my ms-dos partition to a vfat partition which
 > would
 > > support long filenames is a good idea, but I don't know if that will
 > help
 > > me since I have Windows 3.1. Thanks for your patience. I'm trying to
 > leap
 > > from Windows 3.1 to Linux instead of following the path from Windows
 > > 3.1...to Windows 95....to Windows 98....to an old Windows NT....to a
 > new
 > > Windows NT....to who-knows-what. The get-the-CD suggestion was also
 > a good
 > > suggestion but right now I'm trying to introduce myself to Linux on
 > my
 > > computer which has no CD before I make big changes to my other
 > computer
 > > which my family uses every day (it has Windows 3.1, also).
 > >
 > >
 > It may be worth investigating the UMSDOS file system - this provides a
 > Unix file system (with long file names) over an MSDOS filesystem. The
 > Unix files live in an MSDOS directory, with a DOS file called
 > something like linux.--- which holds the long filename and
 > protection/ownership info etc; all the things that Unix likes which
 > DOS does not have. The files themselves look to the DOS side of things
 > like a truncated form of their long names.
 > 
 > It is useful for people running in a mixed environment because it
 > allows you to pinch space from your DOS partition and use it as real
 > Unix space
 > 
 > 
 > John Lines
 > 
 > 
 > p.s. Slackware had support for a UMSDOS boot disk - you could run with
 > no 'real' Linux partition at all. It would be very handy to have that
 > in Debian at some stage.