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FreeDOS 1.1

O

Ole Juul

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There was some discussion of various DOSs, and FreeDOS came up, so I thought I'd give 'er a boot. That was a most aggravating experience. The CD can be downloaded here: http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/

After writing the FreeDOS CD it might not be obvious where the pertinent pieces are located. you can find the format and sys commands as well as the other utilities which you might need to use this system here, \FREEDOS\SETUP\ODIN and the floppy image is located in \ISOLINUX

Nevertheless, even after finding this obscure location of the floppy image, it is not easy to write. On top of that, if you don't rename the autoexec.bat, it will assume you are wanting to format your HDD. The whole thing is just a nightmare of fighting with the will of the packagers. So, I thought I'd just write some images for those who don't want to get (even inadvertently) involved to such an extent. I added a few very simple but unusually functional utilities as well as the FreeDOS format and sys commands on the disks. There are four images:

FD11-360.IMG - 5.25" DSDD 360K
FD11-120.IMG - 5.25" DSHD 1.2meg
FD11-720.IMG - 3.5" DSDD 720K
FD11-144.IMG - 3.5" DSHD 1.44meg

I put all four in an archive on the web for anyone to use, and added a short readme with simple instructions and Mike's disk image utility. So, if you just want to get on with it and get a boot image before you do anything else, it is here:


Note, if you want all the FreeDOS utilities, get the CD and (as mentioned above) go to the \FREEDOS\SETUP\ODIN directory. Where else? :)
 
An important thing to remember is that FreeDOS is not DOS. It is a DOS clone at the kernel level, but the rest is a little different. That gives FreeDOS some ability to innovate because it doesn't have to be an exact copy of DOS. But it does make the first experiences more difficult.

FreeDOS works on a PC or an XT, but the installer is really targeted at a more modern machine with a CD-ROM. FreeDOS 1.1 came out in January and the installer is a little rough around the edges. We're expecting that 1.2 will arrive more quickly than 1.1 did, and it will fix a lot of the shortcomings. 1.2 will also be a more 'full' distribution closer to what 1.0 looked like. Look at 1.1 as more of a fixpack.

The FreeDOS guys generally don't think of vintage machines. It works, but we need to remind them once in a while that there are machines out there without 3.5" floppies or CD-ROM drives. I think that as long as the kernel and utilities support 16 bit systems that we'll be ok - we can do the rest to fix the packaging to make it installable/usable on smaller systems, kind of like what you did above.
 
Nice thread about FreeDOS.

FreeDOS is sometimes used as an "Operating System option" when you are ordering an "à la carte" PC from some manufacturers (like HP, Dell, etc.), which has three main advantages: 1, no license costs; 2, the machine officially comes with an current operating system (some regulations, some places, require that); 3, the PC manufacturer has no support costs, as virtually no one is going to use FreeDOS in the real world after the purchase of the PC, so no after-market support calls from clients about that software option.

This is a scan of the leaflet that comes with HP desktop PCs which are delivered with FreeDOS:

freedoshpleaflet01.jpg

freedoshpleaflet02.jpg

freedoshpleaflet03.jpg



I've done a full image backup (with Ghost 8.0) of the C: particion (which is usually just 8 GB in size, despite the SATA hard disk of the machine being 250 GB) of such an HP distribution of FreeDOS. Such a Ghost backup amounts to about 15MB in size, and comes with full source code for all the DOS utilities which are bundled with FreeDOS:

ghostexplorerfreedos.png



I've very easily restored my Ghost image of FreeDOS into a VMware Server 1.0 virtual machine, and this is its boot menu:

freedosbootmenu.png



Just for kicks, this is FreeDOS' conventional memory consumption when loaded into upper memory and with the extended memory manager:
freedoswithextendedmemo.png


And this is FreeDOS loaded bare, whitout any fdconfig.sys nor autoexec.bat file:
freedoswithoutmemoryman.png



PS: I'll see if I can find some free file hosting service where I can upload this Ghost image with the HP distribution of FreeDOS...
 
mbbrutman said:
An important thing to remember is that FreeDOS is not DOS.
Click to expand...
According to the wiki it is- "The goal of the FreeDOS Project is to create another implementation of MS-DOS" The reason behind the project was because MS was no longer publicly backed its own Dos.

"DOS is a popular system, and there is plenty of PC hardware already available that is ready to support it. Microsoft will not develop DOS forever, and one cannot count on third-party commercial entities to continue DOS. I feel it is then up to those on the Internet to develop their own DOS (FreeDOS) and I feel there is a lot of support for this type of project."

Considering the fact that there appears to be no corperate backing, publicly at least, the folks on the project have done extremely well to get as far as they have.

Out of interest Pepinno did that pc have Windows sticker on the case at all? A rare event, but when I was looking at new kit some time ago the systems that included Windows were actually cheaper than the ones with FreeDos on them.
 
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Caluser2000 said:
According to the wiki it is- "The goal of the FreeDOS Project is to create another implementation of MS-DOS" The reason behind creating it was because MS was no longer publicly backed its own Dos.
Click to expand...

My point was that FreeDOS does not have to slavishly copy MS-DOS. Our file layout is different. Some of the commands are different, and vastly improved. FreeDOS is free to pick from the best open source out there, which in many cases is superior to what was provided with DOS. Take a look at the software list to see what is provided, and if you dig deeper you will see that the FreeDOS equivalents are generally better than the reference standard.

In some cases we are missing function - our own Samba client would be nice.


Mike
 
Caluser2000 said:
Out of interest Pepinno did that pc have Windows sticker on the case at all? A rare event, but when I was looking at new kit some time ago the systems that included Windows were actually cheaper than the ones with FreeDos on them.
Click to expand...

No Windows sticker on those HP FreeDOS PCs, just the conventional Intel processor sticker.
 
Will FreeDOS run 4DOS?

I've long thought that the command-line shell extensions in Windows XP+ would be well incorporated into DOS. (I routinely use them--and am surprised at the general level of ignorance concerning them. There was some thought put into them.)
 
mbbrutman said:
My point was that FreeDOS does not have to slavishly copy MS-DOS. Our file layout is different. Some of the commands are different, and vastly improved. FreeDOS is free to pick from the best open source out there, which in many cases is superior to what was provided with DOS. Take a look at the software list to see what is provided, and if you dig deeper you will see that the FreeDOS equivalents are generally better than the reference standard.

In some cases we are missing function - our own Samba client would be nice.


Mike
Click to expand...
That'd be cool.

A lot of the tools/utils included in freedos can be used effectively with "any dos" so it really doesn't make it superior from that stand point. I guess that the real question is- Other than the fact it is still being supported what is it's primary advantage over the likes of historical MS/PC Dos? As shown in the above screen shots the standard MS tools would offer up same, if not more, conventional memory for example.
 
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Caluser2000 said:
A lot of the tools/utils included in freedos can be used effectively with "any dos" so it really doesn't make it superior from that stand point. I guess that the real question is- Other than the fact it is still being supported what is it's primary advantage over the likes of historical MS/PC Dos?
Click to expand...

Obviously, the additional advantage is that it is OPEN SOURCE, and free.
 
Just going though the wiki it mentions that there was an issue with DLC chips. Anyone know if that been sorted?
It was a popular upgrade on 386 systems at one point.

Ole Juul I just tried your 1.44 image in MS VPC 2004 and it worked a treat. Cheers for doing that. Certainly does make things easier. For the hell of it I ran MSD and it reported the Dos version as MS Dos 7.1.
 
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Caluser2000 said:
Ole Juul have you given FreeDos a try on some of your older kit at all?
Click to expand...

Unlike others here, most of my "collection" is in disarray and in need of cleaning up - or just not set up. However, I do have a 5150 and 5155 ready to go, and I just stuck a disk in the 5155 (which is an XT) and it reports:

Code: 
.Error!.

That's at least something. :) However I'm not going to bother with the 5150 then. I could plug in a 386 but it's a bit of trouble. What I wrote the disks on is a P1 which is my regular DOS box and a wonderful "tweener" for these kinds of projects.

I'd assume it would work on a 386, but would be curious about a 286. I don't have one (just mainboards) so perhaps somebody else here could step up to the plate.
 
Caluser2000 said:
You probably just need to replace the kernal. The 1.44meg image worked fine in my all-in-one 486dx2/66 Compaq.
Kernal numbering of say Ke2024_86f16.zip goes something like ke=kernal 2024=kernal version _86=086 processor type f16=filesystem.
Latest http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos/files/Kernel/2041/
Click to expand...

That's brilliant! How did you ever find that? Now I really am p***ed off that they didn't link to that on their home page. I can't believe how the FreeDOS project goes to such extremes to be opaque. Now I see there are different kernels - after I've gone to a lot of trouble to make images. That was probably a waste. So what I would have liked is a link to this directory (with some description) and a link to the utilities directory. I am of course a complete and raving lunatic for thinking such a thing. Especially when you consider that it would be easier to do this than what they are doing. Their approach makes me feel like even more of an idiot than I already am.

OK, I'll calm down. :) but I guess now I'll have to try one of those just to see what it is since whoever posted them apparently didn't have the 2 minutes, nor consideration for other people, that it would take to add a short description. They're listed 32, 16, 32, 16, in downward progressive order. So I guess the "s" version is the lowest, although for some reason it is the largest.

Anyway, thanks again. I'll report back. :)
 
OK, I tried the 86f16. I found that you need to boot into FreeDOS in order to write those disks. They're not images. Since it didn't say any different, I first tried it under MS-DOS 6.22 and immediately saw my folly when it grabbed the 6.22 command.com. Anyway, fixed that, and verified that the diskette would boot.

Caluser2000 said:
You probably just need to replace the kernal. The 1.44meg image worked fine in my all-in-one 486dx2/66 Compaq.
Click to expand...

I don't expect a kernel named 86f16 will work in an XT anyway, but I stuck it in the 5155 and indeed it doesn't. I imagine it would work with a 286 and perhaps even a 186, but I don't have either of those as a workable machine.

There's probably not much point in having FreeDOS on 5.25" floppies anyway, since what it will run on is basically the 3.5" generation on up.
 
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