cdrom boot support

[stsp]

cdrom boot process spec is known as
"el-torito" and is described here:
https://wiki.osdev.org/El-Torito

[jharrison03]

Not knocking this, just wondering what the use is beside installing an OS that isn't germane to DOSemu?

[stsp]

The only use that I had in the mind,
is to allow the oldbie dos user to dust
off his bootable rescue disks. I myself
have such disks, and I think dosemu2
should allow to use old hardware, rather
than only the old software.
But you are right, no big reason here
but for some nostalgia. :)

[stsp]

It was a very badly needed feature for
dosemu1.x with x<4 btw, because in
dosemu1 there was no fdpp and the
user had to boot whatever he have.
dosemu1.4 tried to offer the freedos
boot (with various degree of success)
so the value of cdrom boot declined.

[jschwartzenberg]

Would it not be easier to write a script that extracts the DOS from those bootable CDs?

[stsp]

I don't think its a replacement.
You can of course just mount a CD
image, and boot from the mount-point.
But we support direct booting from
hdimage, for instance. Why? Well,
first, mostly historically. If it wouldn't
be there initially, maybe we wouldn't
even add that now.
But of course there is always a possibility
to boot some custom (D)OS that our
boot loader does not support.