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= FreeDOS =
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Introduction
======================================================================
FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free operating system for
IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete
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 and
open-source software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License. Therefore, its base distribution does not require
license fees or royalties and creation of custom distributions is
permitted. However, other packages that form part of the FreeDOS
project include non-GPL software considered worth preserving, such as
4DOS, which is distributed under a modified MIT License.
History
======================================================================
The FreeDOS project began 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
======================================================================
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 8MB install CD targeted at regular
users and the other which was a larger 49MB live CD that also held the
source code of the project.
Commercial uses
=================
FreeDOS is used by several companies:
- Dell preloaded FreeDOS with their 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.
- HP provided FreeDOS as an option in its dc5750 desktops, '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 loads the FreeDOS
kernel.
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.
Compatibility
======================================================================
FreeDOS version history
Version Status Codename Date
0.01 ALPHA None 16 September 1994
0.02 ALPHA None December 1994
0.03 ALPHA None January 1995
0.04 ALPHA None June 1995
0.05 ALPHA None 10 August 1996
0.06 ALPHA None 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 None 28 September 2004
1.0 FINAL None 3 September 2006
1.1 FINAL None 2 January 2012
1.2 FINAL None 25 December 2016
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 of 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 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, can not fully be
run in 386 Enhanced Mode except partially in 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 of
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
and 7 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 freeldr.ini equivalent for ReactOS.
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 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 old programs before Windows 95 do not
support LFNs, 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
======================================================================
- Arachne
- DOSBox
- DOSEMU
- FreeRTOS
- GNU GRUB
- List of computing mascots
- ReactOS
- VFAT
External links
======================================================================
[https://web.archive.org/web/20040701030455/http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/
FD-DOC FreeDOS Documentation Project]
[https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/
Official Download — FreeDOS 1.2]
- [http://www.linfo.org/freedos_commands.html Summary of FreeDOS
Commands]
- [http://help.fdos.org/ FreeDOS help (commands and usage)]
- [http://www.linfo.org/freedos_floppy.html How to Create a
BootableFreeDOS Floppy Disk]
- [http://www.nomdo.dds.nl/opendos.htm FreeDOS bootdisk with several
DOS utilities]
- [http://derek.chezmarcotte.ca/?p=340 FreeDOS USB Boot Image]
- [http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/freedos_no_removable.html Install
FreeDOS without any removable media].
License
=========
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
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