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= FreeDOS =
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Introduction
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FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating
system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a
complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and
supporting embedded systems.
FreeDOS can be booted from a floppy disk or USB flash drive. It is
designed to run well under virtualization or x86 emulation.
Unlike most versions of MS-DOS, FreeDOS is composed of free software,
licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. However,
other packages that form part of the FreeDOS project include non-GPL
software considered worthy of preservation, such as 4DOS, which is
distributed under a modified MIT License.
History
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The FreeDOS project began on 29 June 1994, after Microsoft announced
it would no longer sell or support MS-DOS. Jim Hall, who at the time
was a student, posted a manifesto proposing the development of PD-DOS,
a public domain version of DOS. Within a few weeks, other programmers
including Pat Villani and Tim Norman joined the project. Between them,
a kernel (by Villani), the COMMAND.COM command line interpreter (by
Villani and Norman), and core utilities (by Hall) were created by
pooling code they had written or found available. For some time, the
project was maintained by Morgan "Hannibal" Toal. There have been many
official pre-release distributions of FreeDOS before the final FreeDOS
1.0 distribution. GNU/DOS, an unofficial distribution of FreeDOS, was
discontinued after version 1.0 was released.
Blinky the Fish is the mascot of FreeDOS. He was designed by Bas
Snabilie.
Distribution
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FreeDOS 1.1, released on 2 January 2012, is available for download as
a CD-ROM image: a limited install disc that only contains the kernel
and basic applications, and a full disc that contains many more
applications (games, networking, development, etc.), not available
but with a newer, fuller 1.2. The legacy version 1.0 (2006) consisted
of two CDs, one of which was an 8 MB install CD targeted at regular
users and the other which was a larger 49 MB live CD that also held
the source code of the project.
Commercial uses
=================
FreeDOS is used by several companies:
* Dell preloaded FreeDOS with its n-series desktops to reduce their
cost. The firm has been criticized for making these machines no
cheaper, and harder to buy, than identical systems with Windows.
* Hewlett-Packard provided FreeDOS as an option in its HP Compaq
dc5750 Small Form Factor PC, 'Mini 5101' netbooks and 'Probook'
laptops. FreeDOS is also used as bootable media for updating the BIOS
firmware in HP systems.
* FreeDOS is included by Steve Gibson's hard drive maintenance and
recovery program, SpinRite.
* Intel's Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool loaded the FreeDOS
kernel.
* Many motherboard vendors recommend a bootable FreeDOS for running
low level BIOS and firmware updates.
Non-commercial uses
=====================
FreeDOS is also used in multiple independent projects:
* FED-UP is the Floppy Enhanced DivX Universal Player.
* FUZOMA is a FreeDOS-based distribution that can boot from a floppy
disk and converts older computers into educational tools for children.
* XFDOS is a FreeDOS-based distribution with a graphical user
interface, porting Nano-X and FLTK.
Version history
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FreeDOS version history
Version Status Codename Date
0.01 ALPHA 16 September 1994
0.02 ALPHA December 1994
0.03 ALPHA January 1995
0.04 ALPHA June 1995
0.05 ALPHA 10 August 1996
0.06 ALPHA November 1997
0.1 BETA Orlando 25 March 1998
0.2 BETA Marvin 28 October 1998
0.3 BETA Ventura 21 April 1999
0.4 BETA Lemur 9 April 2000
0.5 BETA Lara 10 August 2000
0.6 BETA Midnite 18 March 2001
0.7 BETA Spears 7 September 2001
0.8 BETA Nikita 7 April 2002
0.9 BETA 28 September 2004
1.0 FINAL 3 September 2006
1.1 FINAL 2 January 2012
1.2 FINAL 25 December 2016
1.3 FINAL 20 February 2022
Hardware
==========
FreeDOS requires a PC/XT machine with at least 640 kB of memory.
Programs not bundled with FreeDOS often require additional system
resources.
MS-DOS and Win32 console
==========================
FreeDOS is mostly compatible with MS-DOS. It supports COM executables,
standard DOS executables and Borland's 16-bit DPMI executables. It is
also possible to run 32-bit DPMI executables using DOS extenders. The
operating system has several improvements relative to MS-DOS, mostly
involving support for newer standards and technologies that did not
exist when Microsoft ended support for MS-DOS, such as
internationalization, or the Advanced Power Management TSRs.
Furthermore, with the use of HX DOS Extender, many Windows Console
applications function properly in FreeDOS, as do some rare GUI
programs, like QEMM and Bochs.
DOS-based Windows
===================
FreeDOS is able to run Microsoft Windows 1.0 and 2.0 releases. Windows
3.x releases, which had support for i386 processors, cannot fully be
run in 386 Enhanced Mode, except partially in the experimental FreeDOS
kernel 2037.
Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me use a stripped-down version of
MS-DOS. FreeDOS cannot be used as a replacement because the
undocumented interfaces between MS-DOS 7.0-8.0 and Windows "4.xx" are
not emulated by FreeDOS; however, it can be installed and used beside
these systems using a boot manager program, such as BOOTMGR or
METAKERN included with FreeDOS.
Windows NT and ReactOS
========================
Windows NT-based operating systems, including Windows 2000, XP, Vista,
7, 8, 8.1, 10 and 11 for desktops, and Windows Server 2003, 2008 and
2008 R2 for servers, do not make use of MS-DOS as a core component of
the system. These systems can make use of the FAT file systems which
are used by MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows; however, they
typically use the NTFS (New Technology File System) by default for
security and other reasons. FreeDOS can co-exist on these systems on a
separate partition or on the same partition on FAT systems. The
FreeDOS kernel can be booted by adding it to the Windows 2000 or XP's
NT Boot Loader configuration file, boot.ini, or the freeldr.ini
equivalent for ReactOS.
Virtualization
================
FreeDOS is designed to work well with virtualization software such as
VirtualBox and VMware. The installation process is identical to real
hardware. It is also possible to install FreeDOS on DOSBox and its
derivatives. By doing so, it provides additional functionality not
present in the emulator.
File systems
==============
FAT32 is fully supported and is the preferred format for the boot
drive. Depending on the BIOS used, up to four Logical Block Addressing
(LBA) hard disks of up to 128 GB, or 2 TB, in size are supported.
There has been little testing with large disks, and some BIOSes
support LBA, but produce errors on disks larger than 32 GB; a driver
such as OnTrack or EZ-Drive resolves this problem. FreeDOS can also be
used with a driver called LFNDOS to enable support for Windows
95-style long file names, but most pre-Windows 95 programs do not
support long file names, even with a driver loaded. There is no
planned support for NTFS, ext2 or exFAT, but there are several
external third-party drivers available for that purpose. To access
ext2 file systems, LTOOLS, a counterpart to Mtools, can sometimes be
used to copy data to and from ext2 file system drives.
See also
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* DOSBox
* DOSEMU
* DR-DOS
Further reading
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*
*
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20230930203707/https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/retro_tech_week_freedos/?page=2]
External links
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*
*
* [https://gitlab.com/FDOS FreeDOS Orphanage]
License
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All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS