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I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why
by ndiddy 4y ago
I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?
- mcculley 4y agoMaybe it is for customers running weird old legacy hardware (e.g., lab devices, manufacturing, that only runs on DOS).
- ndiddy 4y agoWeird old legacy hardware that only runs on DOS generally requires real-time access to stuff like ISA cards or parallel/serial ports, so this wouldn't work for that use case since the computer doesn't have any of those.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mcculley 4y agoI have a weird old nylon cutting machine connected to a DOS machine over a serial port. It would not work with a USB/RS-232 adaptor?
- zozbot234 4y agoUSB-serial conversion would add a measurable amount of latency, and the access to USB hardware would occur under a non-real-time OS. Whether the setup "works" would be highly hardware-specific. There are modern industrial "PC" boards that are essentially a i586 implementation in a SoC and can run these workloads far more reliably, while consuming a lot less power compared to old x86 hardware. (They're also of interest to retrocomputing enthusiasts, for largely the same reasons.)
- petre 4y agoThat's orecisely how we run our thread 3D printer. It even has a serial (UART) to USB chip on board and it's connected to a RPi3 boc running Linux and Octoprint.
- coryrc 4y agoIt probably won't if they do weird things with the flow control pins or if the timing really matters, but serial is far more likely than parallel to keep working.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoYeah this is why industrial PCs still have those physical ports.
- wildzzz 4y agoSpend no less than $20 on a USB to serial converter and you'd probably be fine. Anything with an FTDI chip in it are the best. Anything with a Prolific chip has a good possibility of being counterfeit will either not work well or the legit driver will try to brick it.
- 0x0 4y agoFTDI pushed driver updates that bricked counterfeits... https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/31/ftdi_accused_of_bricking_counterfeits_again/ https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/31/ftdi_accused_of_brick...
- arbitrandomuser 4y agoDepends on the adaptor too. Cheap ones only have Rx and TX pins . The rest of the pins are not connected. If your device only used Rx and Tx it would work fine . If it uses functionality of other pins make sure you get the right adaptor
- wmf 4y agoWould those apps work inside QEMU though? Is it configured to properly pass through the parallel port?
- walrus01 4y agoHighly unlikely, without really messing around with it.
- mcculley 4y agoMaybe, but wouldn’t the customer have to know how to run QEMU? I am imagining a customer who wants to just replace an old machine while changing as little as possible.
- djur 4y agoSince this install is based on QEMU running in Linux, it would not meet that need.
- mc4ndr3 4y agoFreeDOS is known to not run well inside of virtualization. A proper host install would be far more capable.
- mcculley 4y agoBut a proper host install is not possible on modern hardware.
- lproven 4y agoThat is not true. In fact, if you just boot FreeDOS 1.3 in VirtualBox, you'll see it detect the virtual NIC, load a TCP/IP stack and acquire an IPv4 address, then report it. It is mostly developed and run inside VMs these days, AFAICS.
- adrian_b 4y agoNo, the FreeDOS HP option has always been used by the customers who did not want to pay a Windows license, because they wanted to install a different operating system, usually some Linux variant (the option to install a pirated Windows variant was also popular in some parts of the world). Dell has the Ubuntu option for many computers, but for those who do not want to use Ubuntu, like myself, there is no difference between the Dell Ubuntu option and the HP FreeDOS option, because such customers will always install their own preferred OS, immediately after the purchase of a new computer.
- TMM2K 4y agoI'm the author of the article; It's not actually usable for that. The way the Qemu VM is setup there is no way to interface with the outside world at all. The only way to get any data in or out of that VM is through the keyboard and screen.
- joshcryer 4y agoI suspect it's more bland than that, they need to be able to have a booting/working system otherwise the customer is going to call up support and say their computer isn't booting or that it's saying "no OS found" type messages. It's just to cover themselves, that's why they include enough Linux to be able to load a PDF reader. It should be easy enough to do d:\setup.exe with a USB that has a Windows installer on it, with this setup.
- walrus01 4y agoYeah, but why not have something that just uefi boots into a barebones grub2 and then cli only debian-stable and bash shell? Forget the DOS part.
- admax88qqq 4y agoIt's probably more like they have DOS support contracted out to some vendor. And when the systems upgraded to the point of not being able to run DOS natively the vendor built this franken-OS to fulfill the contract. Renegotiating the contract to something sensible like "don't run DOS anymore" was probably hopeless in the face of the bureaucracy, or risked losing to contact.
- JonathonW 4y agoWindows installers are bootable these days (from DVD or USB; doesn’t matter); they haven’t been runnable from DOS for a couple decades now. At any rate, even if you did find some OS you could install from DOS, you’d be installing it into the QEMU image if you installed from FreeDOS on a system with this arrangement. There’s no way to get back to the bare metal hardware from FreeDOS here.
- dmitrygr 4y ago> modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore This is false. They still can and happily will. Issue is more about vendor not shipping a CSM image. A modern x86 processor will happily run real DOS just fine.
- yuhong 4y agoIntel officially pulled support in 2020-2021.
- dmitrygr 4y agoIt still works fine, just not officially encouraged by Intel
- toast0 4y agoIntel's been threatening to cut off everything non UEFI for a while... I think I read the iGPU in Alder Lake doesn't work unless you're running UEFI? It might not have happened yet, but it seems inevitable.
- userbinator 4y agoThat's probably because it doesn't have a traditional VBIOS. ...which makes me wonder whether it's possible for the community to write one, given how much docs and source code Intel have released for their GPUs. Of course, how VGA-compatible it is is another thing to consider.
- ndiddy 4y agoThank you for the correction! I saw multiple news articles several years ago saying that Intel would be dropping support for BIOS mode by the end of 2020, but it appears they've been dragging their feet. In the meantime, they seem to have been making moves in other ways, such as not supporting BIOS mode when booting with integrated graphics on 11th gen processors ( https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1045467 https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1045467 ).
- windowsrookie 4y ago
- zitterbewegung 4y agoHypothetically if you wanted to use something like FreeBSD, Dragonfly BSD or maybe OpenSolaris? This is a big reach.
- Spooky23 4y agoThe big market for this is K-12 schools. Microsoft has a licensing program for .edu that doesn’t require an “embedded” hardware license. There are also many places using Neverware to provide Chrome desktops while using the some warranty services, etc that they have with PCs. If you buy alot of computers, you can get desktops crazy cheap. Big enterprise buyers get low-spec desktops for ~$225 without windows or $300 with. If you don’t care about power/footprint, they are the best value thin client. Schools are huge PC buyers, some districts have >300k students, so you’re easily talking 40-70k PCs annually.
- solarkraft 4y agoOk, but why the hell FreeDOS?
- mrugiero 4y agoWhy FreeDOS vs nothing or why FreeDOS vs Linux? The former, because some OEMs have agreements with Microsoft that prohibit shipping systems without an OS. They found the loophole that they could ship a free OS as a placeholder. Why not Linux? I guess it was easier at the time and they then just kept shipping what was already working. It was never intended to keep the original OS anyway (and in particular, Linux users tend to be opinionated and install their favorite distro anyway).
- raverbashing 4y agoAnd I guess FreeDOS doesn't support booting by UEFI as well (I mean, can it even?)