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Encyclopedia > FreeDOS
FreeDOS
The FreeDOS logo
FreeDOS booting screen shot
Website: http://freedos.sourceforge.net/
Company/
developer:
Jim Hall & The FreeDOS team
OS family: DOS
Source model: Open source
Latest stable release: 1.0 / September 3, 2006
Kernel type: Monolithic[1][2]
Default user interface: CLI
License: GPL
Working state: Current

FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is an operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. From the FreeDOS Web Site: Image File history File links Freedosfishlogo. ... Image File history File links BOO1. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, images, videos and other digital assets and hosted on a particular domain or subdomain on the World Wide Web. ... The term software company could be applied to; a) a company that produces software or b) a company that distributes software from a third party or c) a company that provides services for software. ... A software developer is a person who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming or a specialty of project managing. ... Disk Operating System (specifically) and disk operating system (generically), most often abbreviated as DOS (not to be confused with the DOS family of disk operating systems for the IBM PC compatible platform), refer to operating system software used in most computers that provides the abstraction and management of secondary storage... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A BlueGene supercomputer cabinet. ...

FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made up of many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project.[3]

As a member of the DOS family, it provides mainly disk access and filesystem through its kernel, and partial memory management, but no GUI (although OpenGEM is recommended). ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... See Filing system for this term as it is used in libraries and offices In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... Memory management is the act of managing computer memory. ... “PUI” redirects here. ... OpenGEM is a distribution of FreeGEM, a graphical user interface (GUI) for DOS. OpenGEM is a non-multitasking 16bit GUI. OpenGEM is designed to provide commerical quality software for DOS users. ...


FreeDOS is currently at Version 1.0, released on September 3, 2006[4] September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...


FreeDOS supports old hardware such as the 1981 vintage IBM PC as well as modern ones, including the Core 2 CPU, in addition to embedded computers. Like MS-DOS, it boots from a floppy or hard disk but can also run from ROM[5]. Unlike MS-DOS, however, it is available for installation on a CD-ROM, and people are free to create their own custom distributions of the operating system without needing to pay a royalty for redistribution. FreeDOS is free/open source software, licensed under the GNU GPL. Core 2 Duo brand logo This article is about Intel processors branded as Intel Core 2. ... Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6. ... An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system, which is completely encapsulated by the device it controls. ... Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ... In computing, booting is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ... Read-only memory (often referred to as its acronym ROM) is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. ... This article is about free software as defined by the sociopolitical free software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ... ... GPL redirects here. ...

Contents

History

The FreeDOS project began June 26, 1994, when Microsoft announced it would no longer sell nor support MS-DOS. Jim Hall then posted a manifesto proposing the development of an open-source replacement. Within a few weeks, other programmers including Pat Villani and Tim Norman joined the project. A kernel, shell (command.com) and core utilities were soon created by pooling code they had written or found available. Version 1.0 was released on September 3, 2006. June 26 is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 188 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ... Jim Hall began work on a free software replacement for the MS-DOS operating system in 1994 when he was still a physics student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. ... COMMAND.COM is the name for the default operating system shell (or command line interpreter) for DOS and 16/32bits versions of Windows (95/98/98 SE/Me). ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...


The FreeDOS web site now redirects to the SourceForge project freedos.sourceforge.net where all project files—releases and sources—are available. ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ...


Distribution

FreeDOS does not require license fees or royalties. The only other MS-DOS compatible programs that are actively distributed now are Enhanced DR-DOS/OpenDOS, PTS-DOS and ROM-DOS. DR-DOS is a PC DOS-compatible operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildalls Digital Research and derived from CP/M-86. ... PTS-DOS is a disk operating system, a DOS clone, developed in Russia by Phystechsoft. ... Full embedded OS; compact, reliable, fully compatible DOS for embedded uses, mobile computing environments, fast connecting of embedded systems to Internet ...


Dell Computer packages FreeDOS with their n-series [6]. The company has come under fire for making the FreeDOS-powered machines no cheaper and more difficult to purchase than identical systems running Windows[7]. Dell, Inc. ... The n Series is a Dell product line that does not ship with a pre-installed version of Microsoft Windows. ...


GRC's SpinRite 6 boot image loads FreeDOS shown at the bottom of the splash screen. Gibson Research Corporation or GRC is a computer software development firm founded in 1985 by Steve Gibson. ... SpinRite is a commercial hard disk scanning and data recovery utility first created by Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation in 1988. ... A splash screen in LightWave 3D showing the name of the creators of this program Splash screen is a term used to describe an image that appears while a computer program is loading. ...


ASUS uses FreeDOS to allow the user to boot their motherboard driver CDs to create the SATA driver disk (needed for Windows versions before XP SP2) ASUSTeK Computer Inc. ...


FreeDOS 1.0 is available for download only as CD-ROM images, a base disc that only contains the kernel and basic applications, a full disc that contains many more applications (games, networking, development, etc) and doubles as a LiveCD, a base disc with source code, and a full disc with all source code. [1] The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ...


Relation to MS-DOS

FreeDOS is nearly 100% compatible with MS-DOS, allowing some versions of Microsoft Windows to run on it as some older versions of Windows run on MS-DOS.


FreeDOS has several improvements relative to MS-DOS, mostly involving support of newer standards and technologies that did not exist when Microsoft ended support for MS-DOS, such as internationalization support, Advanced Power Management/energy saving TSRs, and integrated ASPI. In addition, LBA and the FAT32 file system (including booting from FAT32) are supported, while none of the official standalone versions of MS-DOS (up to 6.22) released by Microsoft supported them. Internationalization and localization are means of adapting products such as publications or software for non-native environments, especially other nations and cultures. ... APM can also stand for Automatic People Mover. ... Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) is a system call in DOS operating systems that returned control to the system as if the program had quit, but kept the program in memory. ... ASPI, the Advanced SCSI Programming Interface provides an API originated by Adaptec which standardises communication on a computer bus between a SCSI host adapter on the one hand and SCSI (and ATAPI) peripherals on the other. ... Logical block addressing in computing maps conceptual data storage onto secondary storage. ... File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system that was developed for MS-DOS and used in consumer versions of Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows Me. ...


Compatibility

General

Most software written for other members of the DOS family works as expected in FreeDOS. The following types of executables are supported: ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ...

Further, with use of HX DOS Extender, many Win32 console applications function properly in FreeDOS, and some GUI programs, like QEMU and Bochs, used for the screen shot provided in the Infobox. In MS-DOS and compatible DOSes, and in 8-bit CP/M, a COM file is a simple type of executable file with the file name extension (not to be confused with the . ... In computer science, 16-bit is an adjective used to describe integers that are at most two bytes wide, or to describe CPU architectures based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. ... DPMI is the method which Microsoft prescribes for a DOS program to run in protected mode and to access extended memory under a multitasking operating system like Microsoft Windows 3. ... 32-bit is a term applied to processors, and computer architectures which manipulate the address and data in 32-bit chunks. ... DOS extender is the name invented in the 1980s for a technology to allow programs started from MS-DOS, which ran in Real mode, to actually run in protected mode. ... DOS/4GW is the most widely used 32-bit DOS extender, designed to allow DOS programs to eliminate the inherent DOS 640KB memory limit by addressing all the extended memory on Intel 80386 and above machines in MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, the DOS boxes of OS/2, Windows... Cwsdpmi provides DPMI services for programs compiled with latest versions of djgpp compiler system and can also be used for programs requiring dpmi stub as in programs in FreeDOS. It is made by Charles W Sandmann. ... GUI can refer to the following: GUI is short for graphical user interface, a term used to describe a type of interface in computing. ... It has been suggested that Qemu-Launcher be merged into this article or section. ... Bochs for Windows displaying HAL91 (Linux) Bochs is a portable open source x86 and AMD64 PCs emulator mostly written in C++ and distributed under GNU Lesser General Public License. ...


Windows 1.0 through 3.xx

FreeDOS is capable of running both the 1.0 and 2.0 releases of Microsoft Windows. However, 3.x releases of Windows, which had support for i386 processors, cannot be run in 386 Enhanced Mode. Windows 3.0 can run in Real or Standard modes, and other Windows 3.x releases can only be run in Standard mode. Because Windows for Workgroups 3.11 dropped support for Standard mode, it does not run under FreeDOS, except if FreeDOS's references to himem.exe and emm386.exe are replaced by references to the himem.sys and emm386.exe delivered with Windows.[8] Microsoft Windows 1. ... Microsoft Windows 2. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Windows 3. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... The Intel 80386 is a microprocessor which was used as the central processing unit (CPU) of many personal computers from 1986 until 1994 and later. ... Real mode (also called real address mode in Intels manuals) is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. ... A typical Windows 3. ...


Windows 9x and Windows Millennium Edition

Windows 95, 98 and Me are still DOS based versions of the Windows operating system. However, the versions of the "MS-DOS"-like bootloader which they run on top of were not released separate from the Windows system, and Windows 9x and Millennium Edition were more tightly integrated with the versions of MS-DOS that came with them. As a result, FreeDOS can not run Windows 95, 98, or Millennium Edition. FreeDOS can, however, be installed and used beside these systems using a boot manager program, such as the "METAKERN" coming with FreeDOS, LILO or GNU GRUB. Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. ... Windows 98 (codenamed Memphis) is a graphical operating system released on June 25, 1998 by Microsoft and the successor to Windows 95. ... Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft. ... In computing, booting is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with cold boot. ... LILO (LInux LOader) is a boot loader for Linux developed by John Coffman. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...


Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 and ReactOS

The Windows NT family of operating systems, including Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 no longer make use of MS-DOS as a core component of the system. These systems can make use of the FAT filesystems, which are used by MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows; however, they typically use the NTFS (New Technology File System) by default. FreeDOS can coexist on these systems on a separate partition on NTFS systems, or on the same partition on FAT systems. The FreeDOS kernel can be booted by adding it to the Windows NT Boot Loader configuration file, boot.ini, or freeldr.ini for ReactOS. Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K) is a preemptible, interruptible, graphical and business-oriented operating system that was designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor 32-bit Intel x86 computers. ... Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ... Windows Server 2003 Desktop The successor to Windows 2000 Server, Microsofts Windows Server 2003 (codename Whistler Server, also known as Windows NT 5. ... Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ... File Allocation Table (FAT) is a partially patented file system developed by Microsoft for MS-DOS and is the primary file system for consumer versions of Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows Me. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... NTFS or New Technology File System is the standard file system of Windows NT and its descendants: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... An NTLDR boot menu. ...


FreeDOS-32

Main article: FreeDOS-32

FreeDOS-32 is a separate project with different goals. FreeDOS aims to recreate MS-DOS, both features and general limitations. FreeDOS-32 aspires to extend and improve on that base. FreeDOS-32 can be run on top of FreeDOS or another member of the DOS family. It is planned to be a 32-bit operating system, which provides performance enhancements and improved functionality over 16-bit DOS systems. Also, running as a 32-bit operating system removes the need for DOS extenders and switching from real mode to protected mode and back to support protected mode programs. FreeDOS 32 (or FD32 for short) is a 32-bit operating system under development for the IA-32 (also known as i386) platform, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. ... ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... DOS extender is the name invented in the 1980s for a technology to allow programs started from MS-DOS, which ran in Real mode, to actually run in protected mode. ...


Technical details

FAT32 is fully supported (even booting from FAT32). Depending on the BIOS used, as many as four LBA hard disks up to 128 GB or even 2 TB in size are supported. Care is recommended when using huge disks, since there was little testing only so far and some BIOSs support LBA but contain bugs for disks bigger than 32 GB. A driver like OnTrack or EzDrive resolves this bug. FreeDOS can also be used with a driver called DOSLFN, which supports long file names (see VFAT), but most (old) programs do NOT support long file names even if the driver is loaded. File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system that was developed for MS-DOS and used in consumer versions of Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows Me. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Logical block addressing in computing maps conceptual data storage onto secondary storage. ... File Allocation Table (FAT) is a partially patented file system developed by Microsoft for MS-DOS and is the primary file system for consumer versions of Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows Me. ...


There is no planned support for NTFS or ext2 but there are several external third-party drivers available for that purpose. To access ext2fs, use the LTOOLS (counterpart to MTOOLS) which can copy data to and from ext2fs drives, for NTFS there are some products like NTFSDOS and NTFS4DOS. NTFS or New Technology File System is the standard file system of Windows NT and its descendants: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. ... The ext2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel. ... NTFSDOS is a utility by Sysinternals that allows read access to NTFS formatted drives in DOS. Sysinternals also sells a version that provides full read and write access to the NTFS data. ...


So far there is no USB driver support inside the FreeDOS project, but in some cases BIOS makes USB devices accessible for plain FreeDOS. This applies to keyboard and mouse, with a few BIOSs also to storage devices. Some external DOS USB drivers (such as DUSE, USBASPI and USBMASS) for storage devices work with some effort and luck. A better alternative to running DOS programs whilst having USB devices present would be to use DOSBox, which recognizes USB devices from the host operating system to act as if they were "legacy port" devices (e.g. Joysticks with game ports, printers with parallel ports, and USB flash drives would act as if they were a hard drive for DOS). Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to interface devices. ... DOSBox is an emulator which creates a DOS-like environment intended for running MS-DOS-based PC computer games which may not run properly on newer PCs. ... Joystick elements: 1. ... A PCI based soundcard with a DA-15 connector The game port is the traditional connection for video game input devices on an x86-based PCs. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Parallel communications. ... A USB flash drive, shown with a 24 mm U.S. quarter coin for scale. ...


Memory management

The HIMEM and EMM386 memory management programs included with FreeDOS provide XMS and EMS for old real mode software, EMM386 also supports VCPI, which allows DPMI kernels and DOS extenders to coexist with it. FreeDOS also contains an UDMA driver for faster disk access, which is also compatible with other DOS versions. The LBAcache disk cache stores recently accessed disk data in XMS for faster access and less direct disk access. HIMEM is a DOS device driver which allows DOS programs to store data in extended memory via the Extended Memory Specification (XMS). ... EMM386 was Microsofts expanded memory manager, which created expanded memory using extended memory on Intel 80386 CPUs. ... XMS or Extended Memory Specification is the specification describing the use of IBM PC extended memory in real mode for storing data (but not executable code). ... DPMI is the method which Microsoft prescribes for a DOS program to run in protected mode and to access extended memory under a multitasking operating system like Microsoft Windows. ... ATA cables: 40 wire ribbon cable top, 80 wire ribbon cable bottom Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), is a standard interface for connecting storage devices such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers. ...


The FreeCOM shell—FreeDOS's version of COMMAND.COM—can move portions of itself into XMS freeing up large portions of conventional memory, up to 620 kB. This is useful for DOS programs which only use conventional memory. COMMAND.COM is the name for the default operating system shell (or command line interpreter) for DOS and 16/32bits versions of Windows (95/98/98 SE/Me). ... XMS or Extended Memory Specification is the specification describing the use of IBM PC extended memory in real mode for storing data (but not executable code). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...


FreeDOS compatibility is less than 100% but is sufficient for running most programs. Well-written software using the documented API works well. Problems running Windows result from Microsoft's efforts to prevent their products running on non-Microsoft DOS implementations.[9]


Screenshot

FreeDOS editor screenshot Image File history File links Fdedit. ...


See also the screenshot in the Infobox.


References

  1. ^ http://wiki.fdos.org/Kernel/HomePage
  2. ^ FreeDOS Kernel "An MS-DOS Emulator for Platform Independence & Embedded Systems Development", written by Pat Villani, copyright 1996
  3. ^ http://www.freedos.org/
  4. ^ http://www.freedos.org/ The original release date was planned for July 28, 2006. http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=587298
  5. ^ FreeDOS website about
  6. ^ http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/optix_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
  7. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/06/dell_open_pc/
  8. ^ An exception: Windows for Workgroups 3.11 supports a debugging mode that can run under FreeDOS, but it is more restricted than even Standard mode for previous releases of Windows.
  9. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/600488.stm

July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 156 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

See also

Free software Portal

Image File history File links Portal. ... ReactOS is a project to develop a free software/open-source operating system that is binary-compatible with Microsoft Windows NT/XP and Windows Server 2003 applications and device drivers. ... FreeDOS 32 (or FD32 for short) is a 32-bit operating system under development for the IA-32 (also known as i386) platform, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. ... DOSEMU, alternatively rendered dosemu, is a compatibility layer software package that enables MS-DOS software to run under Linux on x86-based PCs (IBM PC compatible computers). ... DOSBox is an emulator which creates a DOS-like environment intended for running MS-DOS-based PC computer games which may not run properly on newer PCs. ... Command Prompt on Windows XP. A command prompt (or just prompt) is a character or string of characters used in a command line interface to indicate that the computer is ready to accept typed input. ... FreeRTOS.org is a real-time operating system for embedded devices, being ported to several microcontrollers. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

  Results from FactBites:
 
FreeDOS: Information From Answers.com (0 words)
FreeDOS supports old hardware such as the 1981 vintage IBM PC as well as modern ones up to the Pentium 4 CPU, in addition to embedded computers.
FreeDOS is open source software that is also free, licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.
FreeDOS is capable of running both the 1.0 and 2.0 releases of Microsoft Windows.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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