8 ms·

FreeDOS's Linux Roots

109 points by dbennett 7y ago

Endy 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  The tools weren't "originally Linux", some of the functionality was inspired by similar Linux tools. I thought that was explained pretty clearly, tbh.
i_feel_great 7y ago
Curious. How exactly does one build embedded applications for FreeDOS? What languages/compiles can I use?
- Newtonip 7y ago
  One can use the free Open Watcom or DJGPP to code in C or C++.
  - jpernst 7y ago
    Is DJGPP still maintained? All I could seem to find are very old versions, unless the project has moved somewhere that I couldn't find.
    - chungy 7y ago
      http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ Considering it has GCC 9.1.0, I'd say it's still maintained.
      - jpernst 7y ago
        This website is such a blast from the past. I remember using DJGPP in highschool in 1998 and it still looks just the same. Glad to hear that it's still being used and updated; maybe I'll give it another try for old time's sake.
- sigzero 7y ago
  http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/group-devel.html http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dist...
  - i_feel_great 7y ago
    FreePascal & Lua! Thanks
  - AstroJetson 7y ago
    Rexx! Loved that on OS/2, pretty happy to see that it has a home on FreeDOS.
- xvilka 7y ago
  Check Open Watcom v2[1], which is still actively developed. Also the JWasm[2] - FOSS alternative to MASM. [1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 [2] https://GitHub.com/JWasm/JWasm https://GitHub.com/JWasm/JWasm
- 0815test 7y ago
  I think LLVM is adding 16 bit support of some kind. It's not something that's "self-hosted" on DOS itself like some of the other solutions are, but the flip side is that this gives you a lot of flexibility. You could even develop in Rust.
mixmastamyk 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - vocatus_gate 7y ago
    I would assume...(guess?) that FreeDOS will continue to exist in VM's to support extremely old industrial control systems (for example, one of the major dairy plants in my hometown of Phoenix, which still uses [last I checked, 2016] software running in a VM on actual DOS). Beyond that however, maybe outside of educational scenarios, I can't see it sticking around much longer as the move to pure EFI continues full steam.
  - jdboyd 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      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.
      - 7y ago
Something1234 7y ago
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.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I legitimately needed to use freeDOS a few months ago in order to downgrade the firmware on my BluRay drive, so I'd be able to rip 4K discs. It could only be done from DOS.
  - vocatus_gate 7y ago
    Wait...I have a legitimate question (was about to post some snarky comment but now I'm wondering). WHY did you need DOS??? Use an XP VM? Some sort of Linux emulator? Flashing the firmware on a device manufactured long after the existence of DOS had been forgotten for most major hardware producers... so many questions!
    - vertex-four 7y ago
      There’s a lot of firmware flashing stuff that runs on DOS, because it’s easier to have direct access to hardware without the OS trying to access that hardware simultaneously. The alternative is correctly disabling the device under Windows/Linux/whatever, flashing the firmware, and re-enabling it, which is a process likely to have bugs and potentially result in bricking the device. Modern operating systems are big and constantly doing things in the background that may interfere with the firmware flashing process.
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        Even DOS doesn't work for most modern hardware. Can't have direct blueray drive access if there is no way to initialize the SATA controller...
Asooka 7y ago
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.
slim 7y ago
I thought freedos was written in fasm
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
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.

109 points by dbennett 7y ago

Endy 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
The tools weren't "originally Linux", some of the functionality was inspired by similar Linux tools. I thought that was explained pretty clearly, tbh.

i_feel_great 7y ago

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

Newtonip 7y ago
One can use the free Open Watcom or DJGPP to code in C or C++.
- jpernst 7y ago
  Is DJGPP still maintained? All I could seem to find are very old versions, unless the project has moved somewhere that I couldn't find.
  - chungy 7y ago
    http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ Considering it has GCC 9.1.0, I'd say it's still maintained.
    - jpernst 7y ago
      This website is such a blast from the past. I remember using DJGPP in highschool in 1998 and it still looks just the same. Glad to hear that it's still being used and updated; maybe I'll give it another try for old time's sake.
sigzero 7y ago
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/group-devel.html http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dist...
- i_feel_great 7y ago
  FreePascal & Lua! Thanks
- AstroJetson 7y ago
  Rexx! Loved that on OS/2, pretty happy to see that it has a home on FreeDOS.
xvilka 7y ago
Check Open Watcom v2[1], which is still actively developed. Also the JWasm[2] - FOSS alternative to MASM. [1] https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2 [2] https://GitHub.com/JWasm/JWasm https://GitHub.com/JWasm/JWasm
0815test 7y ago
I think LLVM is adding 16 bit support of some kind. It's not something that's "self-hosted" on DOS itself like some of the other solutions are, but the flip side is that this gives you a lot of flexibility. You could even develop in Rust.

mixmastamyk 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
- vocatus_gate 7y ago
  I would assume...(guess?) that FreeDOS will continue to exist in VM's to support extremely old industrial control systems (for example, one of the major dairy plants in my hometown of Phoenix, which still uses [last I checked, 2016] software running in a VM on actual DOS). Beyond that however, maybe outside of educational scenarios, I can't see it sticking around much longer as the move to pure EFI continues full steam.
- jdboyd 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
    - 7y ago

Something1234 7y ago

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.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I legitimately needed to use freeDOS a few months ago in order to downgrade the firmware on my BluRay drive, so I'd be able to rip 4K discs. It could only be done from DOS.
- vocatus_gate 7y ago
  Wait...I have a legitimate question (was about to post some snarky comment but now I'm wondering). WHY did you need DOS??? Use an XP VM? Some sort of Linux emulator? Flashing the firmware on a device manufactured long after the existence of DOS had been forgotten for most major hardware producers... so many questions!
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    There’s a lot of firmware flashing stuff that runs on DOS, because it’s easier to have direct access to hardware without the OS trying to access that hardware simultaneously. The alternative is correctly disabling the device under Windows/Linux/whatever, flashing the firmware, and re-enabling it, which is a process likely to have bugs and potentially result in bricking the device. Modern operating systems are big and constantly doing things in the background that may interfere with the firmware flashing process.
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Even DOS doesn't work for most modern hardware. Can't have direct blueray drive access if there is no way to initialize the SATA controller...

Asooka 7y ago

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.

slim 7y ago

I thought freedos was written in fasm

Lowkeyloki 7y ago

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.