SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties. Nowadays it survives solely through the efforts of hobbyists and retro-enthusiasts, but this is a highly sparse and unorganized ecosystem. SvarDOS aims to collect available DOS software and make it easy to find and install applications using a network-enabled package manager (like apt-get, but for DOS and able to run on a 8086 PC).
↫ SvarDOS website
SvarDOS is built around a fork of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel, which is available in a dedicated GitHub repository. The project’s base installation is extremely minimal, containing only the kernel, a command interpreter, and some basic system administration tools, and this basic installation is compatible down to the 8086. You are then free to add whatever packages you want, either from local storage or from the online repository using the included package manager. SvarDOS is a rolling release, and you can use the package manager to keep it updated.
Aside from a set of regular installation images for a variety of floppy sizes, there’s also a dedicated “talking” build that uses the PROVOX screen reader and Braille ‘n Speak synthesizer at the COM1 port. It’s rare for a smaller project like this to have the resources to dedicate to accessibility, so this is a rather pleasant surprise.
We probably need this simplicity… on a somewhat modern system.
That has always been the issue. The 8086 is insufficient to do most modern work. And even though DOS technically supports protected mode 32-bit programs (DPMI, from open source CWSDPMI, or Windows’s internal one for DOS windows for example)…. And FreeDOS had a 32-bit fork…
Yet the driver and API situation makes it fragmented.
Do you want to run networking? Yes you can. There is even TCP/IP. But every “stack” is independent of each other
Do you want to make some noise? Maybe play something on your sound blaster in the background? There is a TSR for that. But it has to hook into internal data structures like an octopus to handle your multimedia keyboard. And it will break your DOOM session.
We don’t have to go too far, but a functional, simple, full screen, mostly text system would be awesome.
Maybe one day someone will make a “Raspberry PI” DOS or ESP-32 one.
A combination of text mode editors -> compilers -> occasional DOOM -> Norton Commander (okay Midnight Commander) -> being able to SSH to my other computers
Would be awesome
[ I realized I said nothing about DR-DOS… Sorry for being a bit off-topic ]
Isn’t that what Linux is? Distributions are just people packaging software to expand Linux. If you cut it right down, Linux can be as text mode as you like.
DOS was sidelined for a reason. The same reason i argue Linux will never make it mainstream. It’s too fragmented. Linux is definitely better than DOS in this respect, but the days of running DOS as a general purpose OS are looong gone, and for the better.
What i want to see, if a DOS based Win16 compatible OS, a la Win3.1. Maybe even with a 95-like shell.
The123king,
I truly looked into this. And using Linux as text mode was my default (a “better” dos with RHIDE and mpg123 etc). Even startx was an occasional thing for me.
However today, it felt impossible.
X comes by default. Even if I switch the init settings, it somehow overrides it to start a desktop session in default Ubuntu, Fedora Debian and many others.
Text console? Impossible. The UEFI versions especially boot in graphics mode and the “text” console is just a simple UI. There is no more 80×25 native.
Basic things like changing the IP address? Requires systemd / ubus / whatnot. /etc/hosts? Completely ignored.
If I had time, I could probably build an entirely custom thing with Gentoo (if it is still a thing), or try to dust up my Slackware discs. But I have more or less given up.
(Or hear me as a very old Linux user lamenting the lost relics)
The whole simplicity is the point, I think, and which is the thing I loved the most about DOS (or heck, to some extent even classic Mac OS)
– You know EXACTLY what the computer is doing – TSRs and drivers aside. If you are old enough, you know well the difference between “mouse” and “lh mouse”, “mscdex” or “lh mscdex” =)
– In my first job, I was basically to do-everything computer guy, and we had a Digital Audio 733 G4 with Final Cut Pro 2. The computer was USELESS when it was exporting, but I knew the whole CPU power was allocated to exporting. No context switches, no nice-re-nice. When we upgraded to OS 10.3 yes, we got beautiful expose, but our export times also expanded significantly.
Which is why I love my freebsd installations. I start from scratch and add only what I need to openbox. I don’t use bluetooth, so no bluetooth. Unfortunately, I can’t use IPv6 yet, so no IPv6. I can change my backlight by typing “backlight 15”, so no daemon to read the brightness keys. The result is that a much older computer on my clean FreeBSD setup feels much more responsive when interacting than a new computer running a heavy DE.
So, yes, we have a simple, functional, modular text system: Linux or one of the BSDs, when installed from scratch. It is a similar experience to what you are describing with DOS, if “simple, functional, mostly text” is what you are looking for. I can do everything from the terminal: basic browsing, check and respond emails, listen to mp3s and even my $DAYJOB (except logging into teams).
Shiunbird,
In an event oriented OS, simple background daemons/widgets shouldn’t noticeably affect responsiveness of foreground applications. Text versus graphics doesn’t change this either. The problem I’m noticing these days however is that some modern operating systems have exceptionally heavy background services that ramp up CPU even when the users don’t request it. When I notice large delays on a windows computer I’ll open up task manager and sure enough there are hidden background processes consuming lots of CPU. Speaking of which, windows update services are such hogs and run unprompted at very inopportune times!!
=)))
100% with you. My ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 dual boots FreeBSD and Windows. After I boot FreeBSD, with antivirus, firewall, nvidia proprietary drivers and openbox, I have something like 25-30 background processes.
In Windows, I get… a lot. And I use the computer for the same things… firefox, prusaslicer, vs code, email, youtube. Sometimes the fans ramp up when I am on battery and the Windows Indexer decided to eat 100% of one thread (and battery life drops from 8 to 2 hours) – and I still can’t find files with it haha. After too many sleep/wake ups, the nvidia container starts eating a boatload of CPU even with the computer idle, and the stupid fortemedia audio service, well, it is set to disabled and I only turn it on when I have a video call because it really makes my audio sound better for the receiving end. Otherwise it will just eat 4-5% CPU. All of that after running all cleaners, getting rid of edge, disabling all the services and startup items I could, etc..
It’s rubbish software on top of rubbish software on top of rubbish software. Death by a thousand cuts.
Shiunbird,
That is a very good metaphor.
A modern desktop requires all these things as the needs have piled over time.
You can have monitors with different DPIs, so a “composition engine” is a must. You cannot have bitmap-to-pixel matching.
You can have online connections. So Wifi daemons, access point listeners, firewalls and whatnots has to be included
You might have 20 different programs that try to run their own update mechanisms, and 2-3 online cloud drives (which you might not even know you had) working in the background, trying to synchronize things.
But that brings all bloat.
For the 20/80 rule, the 20% of the things that you use require having the other 80% that is just cruft.
(And since the 20% is different for every person…)
OS/2 is also alive and well for retro gaming because you can use the upper memory in a DOS session which makes some DOS games run much better!
I agree with the statements above, DOS is dead.
We can reminisce about the old 8086 / Pentium PCs but those old PCs aren’t relevant in today’s world.
I don’t think you can watch Youtube videos on the DOS platform 😀
The developer would be better off contributing to another Open Source OS such as Haiku or BSD or Linux.
just because something doesn’t fit your world view doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. you might as well go and belittle your grandma for making pancakes from scratch because you can get batter ready made from a box.