
FreeDOS's Linux Roots - dbennett
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/freedoss-linux-roots
======
Something1234
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it
a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I
could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.

~~~
mey
Unless you want to work specifically with FreeDOS, you might look at DOSBox
instead. It's a MS-DOS emulator that runs in user space, rather than running
as the OS, thus a lower barrier to entry.

~~~
jamesgeck0
The utilities provided by FreeDOS are generally more complete than those
provided by DOSBox. You can copy them into your DOSBox installation for the
best of both worlds.

~~~
mey
[https://github.com/microsoft/ms-dos](https://github.com/microsoft/ms-dos) may
also be interesting

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Asooka
Shouldn't it say GNU roots? I expected to read they borrowed code from Linux
for their kernel and was curious what exactly the similarities would be
between Linux and FreeDOS's kernel given that DOS doesn't even do multi-
tasking, but the article only talks about them reimplementing GNU.

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Lowkeyloki
One of the comments on the article proper makes me so sad. It basically says
"What a monumental waste of effort. You should have spent your time improving
Linux and not recreating DOS."

It's fine if you don't get the allure of this project. But to presume to tell
someone how they should spend their own time is ridiculous to me. The creator
of FreeDOS set out to do something, succeeded, and enjoyed their time doing
it. And this person is telling them they're wrong.

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mixmastamyk
How does freedos handle newer hardware? I remember giving up on my super DOS
boot disc about a decade+ ago when it wouldn't boot anymore. If memory serves
it was around the end of IDE drives, but I could be wrong. Maybe it had to do
with EFI.

~~~
scottjg
FreeDOS, like MSDOS, relies on BIOS calls to control the hardware. Most PCs
aren't pure EFI-only and can still boot with some BIOS compatibility, but of
course not all of the BIOS implementations are bug-free.

When legacy BIOS compatibility is truly dead, I guess DOS will die with it.

~~~
jdboyd
I suspect that when we get computers that are pure EFI and completely free of
legacy BIOS, it will be possible to use something like SeaBIOS to continue to
add back BIOS compatibility for use with tools like FreeDOS.

~~~
farmerbb
I've tried booting FreeDOS on my Chromebook with SeaBIOS installed, and it
just does not handle it well. The system will completely lock up when running
most programs or even just by hitting the Tab key. FreeDOS doesn't even boot
unless I have it skip loading AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS on startup.

~~~
jdboyd
Thanks for posting that. Sounds like SeaBIOS or FreeDOS.

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i_feel_great
Curious. How exactly does one build embedded applications for FreeDOS? What
languages/compiles can I use?

~~~
sigzero
[http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-
stuff/freedos/files/dist...](http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-
stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/group-devel.html)

~~~
AstroJetson
Rexx! Loved that on OS/2, pretty happy to see that it has a home on FreeDOS.

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slim
I thought freedos was written in fasm

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Endy
You know, the fact that their tools were originally Linux explains why the
tools are so bloated and slow compared to the MS-DOS utilities I still use
like EDIT, TREE, and MORE. It also explains why FreeDOS won't install on PCs I
have which install and run DR-DOS and MS-DOS just fine.

~~~
ggm
Thats linux. Not UNIX. I think tool suites from companies now dead made tiny-c
and the like, and had tractably small memory model, split i+d stuff in the c
compiler toolchain. Not much work on them. Why not?

Well.. targeting 8086, 80286 was somehow off the radar for a bunch of people.
I think because a lot of flight ready milspec stuff ran on 6502 or 6800, and
especially the latter was a classic gordon-moore model simple register==memory
model, a lot more ports went into 6800(x)

Interesting to think if IBM had selected a motorola CPU like this instead of
an Intel, or if Intel had been in a mood to adopt a PDP11 instruction set...
what the world would be like.

As a DEC-10 and PDP11 and Vax person, I used CP/M, it was ok. I could survive.
MS-DOS blind-sided me. I had no idea what was coming down the pipe. talk about
walking into a room of razors with closed eyes.

