Submitted by GNU/DOS 2006, the latest version of the FreeDOS distribution, has been released. New features include an easy installation/upgrade, package management utilities, the MTXE screen saver, Arachne GPL version 1.89, OpenGEM Release 5, vim 6.4, and other updates. Download it here.
<– dusts off his wp 2.0 and wolfenstine 3d disks
Well, if they work then let us know
Are your wp 2.0 the wp 2.0? 😮
Can GNU/DOS mount samba-shares?
Can it run Norton Ghost?
I believe FreeDOS can run Ghost, but I havn´t managed to make a FreeDOS bootdisk, yet, with the ability to mount samba-shares.
that would be sweet
It would? Why is the open source zealots always trying to turn back the clock? Let’s move forward and forget about DOS. Geesh!
Linux zealots are always bashing MS about security. Any DOS platform can’t be that secure by design. After all, DOS was not designed with the Internet in mind.
Look ahead not behind.
Sorry, you’re way off. You should have read the article better. We’re not talking about MS-DOS, we’re talking about GNU/DOS 2006 (FreeDOS). It’s compatible, but that’s about it. No MS-DOS code, I think.
We’re talking about Linux, you’re talking about *nix.
what?
dude… GNU/DOS is an OS in and of itself.
so, can you run servers on it?
There are several server packages for it, some a lot better than others. Check for example:
http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/indexall.htm#internet
Edited 2006-01-20 02:23
When I referenced Linux and *nix, was a metafore… apples and pears? He was talking about DOS, but FreeDOS is different beast. It’s compatible, but that’s it.
It would? Why is the open source zealots always trying to turn back the clock? Let’s move forward and forget about DOS. Geesh!
Linux zealots are always bashing MS about security. Any DOS platform can’t be that secure by design. After all, DOS was not designed with the Internet in mind.
Look ahead not behind.
I have a ’67 Chevy Corvair that I drive on the weekends. It has no AC and, compared to modern cars, it gets bad gas mileage, is unreliable, and isn’t very safe. Do I like it? Yes. I’m a hobbyist. It’s not about performance or safety. It’s about having a piece of history and something fun to tinker with. I could also use it for day-to-day transport if I wanted to. I don’t use GNU/DOS, but I imagine that the folks who use and develop it feel the same way about their OS.
Edited 2006-01-19 19:30
No point having a web browser and email client without an IP stack.
Why?
This has been answered a million times before! This is OS news! Just because you can’t do things with a particular OS that you can do in Linux/Windows/OS X doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explore that OS. It’s like a hobby, exploring various non standard OSs just for satisfying your curiosity.
When will all these “why?” ppl learn
Because.
Of the top of my head:
Because you can’t flash your BIOS without DOS; If I had a working DOS/NFS/SAMBA solution, I didn’t have to create a floppy BIOS image and connect a floppy drive every time I want to upgrade a BIOS image on one of my machines…
G.
False. Most modern motherboards allow flashing from within Windows OS directly. It works flawlessly for the most part. (some lug nut will respond with “Windows fried my board, I hate Bill Gates. Long live Linux!”)
“Windows fried my board, I hate Bill Gates. Long live Linux!”
w00t!
Umm….
And what am I supposed to do if I don’t use Windows?
Tell me, did you actually think before posting, or was it just a reflex?
G.
Wait a minute. The guy asks a legitimate question, probably not having seen articles on FreeDOS before, and get modded down. Someone responds with a “Because” and he gets modded up to 4?? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’d like somebody to honestly explain how this voting system is being used as it was intended.
Why just install yourself GNU/Dos and try to answer to this qeustion ?
The “why” was probably considered to be offensive, since it’s usually asked in relation to non-mainstream software.
It’s often asked in relation to BeOS, SkyOS, minor Linux distributions etc., Syllable OS, AROS, AmigaOS, MorphOS and so on. Usually extended to: (Why!? Why don’t they just stick to Windows/Linux/BSD/Mac whatever mainstream)
There is no “why” in here.
Cool. The simplicity and flexibility of DOS. I hope they’ve gotten it up to speed by now.
installer and/or iso image still have bugs.
i keep a DOS partition on my laptop. when i have to make a note or edit a simple text, then i boot into dos – it’s started within two seconds. compare that booting speed to windows or linux…
shutting down is even faster. just push the power button.
Yup, one of the better things in DOS. It has many drawbacks but also a certain simplicity not to be forgotten.
Is it safe to use FreeDOS to update a motherboard BIOS?
I don’t have any windows machine around, so it could be an easy solution for me.
is there tcp/ip stack for freedos ?
Yes, I use DOS quite a bit. I have it installed on a PII 400 machine, and an old Pentium 75 laptop. What can you do with it? Well:
AIM – bsflite aim client
Web browsing and email: Arachne. Has lots of plugins for audio and video and so on.
IRC – can’t remember the name of this one
Office – Word 6.0, VDE, lots of freeware spreadsheets and word processors. The spreadsheet I occasionally use supports exporting/importing comma-delimited text.
Database – several freeware databases. I use D-Base sometimes (The spreadsheet I mentioned above interacts well with D-Base)
Graphics – Pixel32. Amazing DOS software
Music – lots of players for Mp3, CD, wav and others.
Games – TONS. http://www.abandonia.com, http://www.the-underdogs.org. There are many great strategy, adventure, arcade, and action games out there. Master of Magic, Panzer General, Fantasy General, and on and on.
Development – DOS is a great assembly language platform. Also, there are many languages available, including a port of the GNU C/C++/Objective-C toolchain.
UNIX – there are ports of alot of the standard UNIX tools to DOS. I use VIM alot for example, as well as the standard UNIX shell commands (ls, mv, cp, rm, etc…). DOS also has sftp and ssh, which I use to move files to/from the DOS box to my other machines.
I use Caldera OpenDOS, which supports pre-emptive multitasking, and has some nice features beyond what MS-DOS 6.22 had.
In all, I just have fun using old software and systems.
Brennan
Hello,
I’ve downloaded the linked ISO, but it seems to be not booteable. How do I test this? FreeDOS? MS-DOS?
Thanks in advance,
Norberto
It is a little weird installation process.
First you burn the iso on a CD, when you make a bootdisk with the diskimage “gd2k6bt.img” using rawrite or something like that. When make at second floppy disk with a dos cd-driver.
Boot from the boot disk, prepair the install partition and run “sys c:” and install.exe. After following the guide, you can boot your system. After booting the install gnudos, you run instcd.bat of the CD it will copy all need files.
Reboot again, and welcome to gnudos.