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Yes. Linux uses the standard MS-DOS partitioning scheme, so it can
share your disk with other operating systems. Note, however, that
many of these other operating systems are rather picky. DOS's
FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.EXE, for example, can sometimes
overwrite data in a Linux partition, because they sometimes
incorrectly use partition data from the partition's boot sector rather
than the partition table.
In order to prevent programs like these from doing this, it is a good idea to zero out -- under Linux -- the start of a partition you created, before you use MS-DOS -- or whatever -- to format it. Type:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdXY bs=512 count=1where
hdXY is the relevant partition; e.g., hda1 for
the first partition of the first (IDE) disk.
Linux can read and write the files on your DOS and OS/2 FAT partitions and floppies using either the DOS filesystem type built into the kernel or mtools. There is kernel support for the VFAT filesystem used by Windows 95 and Windows NT.
`` What software does Linux support?'' for details and status of the emulators for DOS, MS Windows, and System V programs.
See, `` Can Linux access Amiga filesystems?'' and, `` Can Linux access Mac filesystems?'' `` Can Linux access BSD, SysV, etc., UFS?'' `` Can Linux access SMB filesystems?''
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Use the DOS filesystem; i.e., type, for example:
$ mkdir /dos $ mount -t msdos -o conv=text,umask=022,uid=100,gid=100 /dev/hda3 /dosIf it's a floppy, don't forget to umount it before ejecting it!
You can use the conv=text/binary/auto, umask=nnn,
uid=nnn, and gid=nnn options to control the
automatic line-ending conversion, permissions and ownerships of the
files in the DOS filesystem as they appear under Linux. If you mount
your DOS filesystem by putting it in your /etc/fstab, you can
record the options (comma-separated) there, instead of defaults.
Alternatively, you can use mtools, available in both binary and source form on the FTP sites -- `` Where can I get Linux material by FTP?''.
A kernel patch (known as the fd-patches) is available which allows floppies with nonstandard numbers of tracks and/or sectors to be used; this patch is included in the 1.1 alpha testing kernel series.
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Not very easily. You can access DOS 6.X volumes from the DOS emulator (`` What software does Linux support?''), but it's harder than accessing a normal DOS volume