Free Software and the T.O.V.A. 7.4
TOVA uses and is built on various Free Software ("Open Source") software, some of which we have modified. This directory includes the original source to all Free Software used by the TOVA, and patches for any modifications we have made.
Note that you can always find the current version of this information at http://source.thetovacompany.com.
Thank you, Open Source Projects!
We at the TOVA Company would like to publically thank the open source projects that we use in the T.O.V.A. 7.4. We are indebted to the thousands of volunteers who make these projects just work. In particular, we'd like to single out the FreeDOS, GRUB, and NTFS-3g projects without whom the T.O.V.A. 7.4 wouldn't be possible.
Modified Free Software
We used Debian GNU/Linux as a build environment; many thanks to the Debian project. We also thank the Git project for producing an excellent Free Software version control system, which we found invaluable for managing our modifications to this software.
ntfs-3g
TOVA uses libntfs-3g 0.20061031-BETA (obtained from the Debian ntfs-3g package source), with modifications by us to run inside GRUB with minimal memory usage and library dependencies.
Original source and all modifications.
After extracting and applying all patches, build as follows:
CFLAGS="-DNO_NTFS_DEVICE_DEFAULT_IO_OPS -Os -finline-functions" ac_cv_header_mntent_h=no ac_cv_func_mbsinit=no ./configure --enable-static --disable-shared --without-fuse --disable-standard-logging && make
You will need the resulting libntfs-3g.a to build our modified GRUB.
GNU GRUB
TOVA uses GNU GRUB 0.97, with additional patches from the grub4dos project and the Debian GRUB package, and many modifications and bugfixes by us.
Original source and all modifications.
Our modifications include NTFS support based on ntfs-3g, so build and install that first as described above.
After extracting, applying all patches, replacing preset_menu.lst with our preset menu, and running autoreconf to regenerate the autotools files, build as follows:
CFLAGS="-DNO_MENU_LST_SEARCH" ./configure --enable-preset-menu=preset_menu.lst --with-ntfs-3g=/usr/local --disable-ext2fs --disable-ffs --disable-ufs2 --disable-minix --disable-reiserfs --disable-vstafs --disable-jfs --disable- xfs --disable-iso9660 --disable-hercules && make
This will generate grldr in the stage2 directory.
mtools
TOVA uses mtools 3.9.10, with modifications by us to run on Windows and cross-compile with MinGW.
Original source and all modifications.
After extracting and applying all patches, build as follows:
ac_cv_func_setpgrp_void=yes ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu --host=i586-mingw32msvc --disable-floppyd --without-x --disable-raw-term && make
Free Mono Font
The code page 0 'symbol' font, Free Monospaced Symbol (filename: FreeMonoSymbol.ttf), was created from the UCS Free Font Project's free and open source font, Free Mono (filename: FreeMono.ttf). It was edited in FontForge, a free and open source font editor.
Note that Free Monospaced Symbol ONLY provides a code page 0: the "ASCII symbol" characters were copied from higher code pages in Free Mono down to code page 0 so that DOS aplications, like the TOVA, could specify them.
Unmodified Free Software
DOSBox
TOVA has an option to run inside DOSBox, a DOS emulator. This is for the few Windows XP systems (~ 1%?) that have a mysteriously broken NTVDM system that freezes while starting the TOVA.
FreeDOS
TOVA uses a subset of the FreeDOS 1.0 base system, unmodified.
Info-ZIP
TOVA uses Info-ZIP unzip 5.51 and zip 2.3, unmodified.
JkDefrag
TOVA uses JkDefrag 3.6, unmodified.
syslinux
TOVA uses syslinux and isolinux from syslinux 3.31, unmodified.