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The FSF is a good candidate. I looked into that once, when people kept asking me how they could donate money to the FreeDOS Project. I asked Richard Stallman if the FSF would be willing to accept donations that would benefit FreeDOS projects. This was his reply (be aware of his conditions):

This sort of thing is possible, and within our charter. I think we would have the responsibility to supervise the spending of the money, to make sure it was spent in a legitimate way on FreeDOS development and not siphoned away to something else.

Also, if we do this for you, we would want to ask you to help us out in little ways--for example, if you mention in FreeDOS materials the system people often call "Linux", we'd like you to call it "GNU/Linux". And we'd ask you to use the term "free software" preferentially rather than "open source".

The "little ways" thing ("GNU/Linux" instead of just "Linux") would probably not be such a little thing for some people, if the $126,155.29 were donated to them for the FSF to distribute.

A totally elementary Google search would have brought up EVERYTHING you would need to get things going.

... including my page about 'Using Palm Zire with Linux'. The only stumbling block I had was that the USB device it was sitting on wasn't being chown'd to me, so I had to manually extend the permissions so I could read/write to the device.

Aside from that, it's easy. My only other problem has been that I can't sync my work calendar (we use Oracle Collaboration Suite, and there's no connector for that in Linux.)

How many open-source graphics packages are there? One (Gimp).

Actually there are two others that turned up in a simple google:

http://www.inkscape.org/
http://www.sodipodi.com/

Without OSX and Windows, there is only one operating system left.

There are in fact several open source OS's besides linux, some based on unix some not:

http://www.reactos.com/
http://www.freedos.org/
http://www.netbsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/

It is true that certain packages tend to dominate if they are clearly better than the others (such as Gimp or Apache) However in some areas their is still no clear 'winner' such as the battle between KDE/Gnome. This is just natural evolution in progress.

FreeDOS will.

All of these have achieved some commercial success and are popular, well supported, operating systems. Something tells me you need to stop running Windows and come out into the real world.

whales? fear FreeDos.

Keeping such a high number of different Distro/Flavours/Installation, also hurts the virus development efforts...
Which IS an obvious advantage.

About the problems the writer of the article complains :
Today any decent distro includes most applications that the average user needs (Office suite, web surfing, e-mail, etc...) and if your not happy with that, you can still use the installation tools of your distro to install whatever package wasn't selected by default (today almost all distribution have package for all alternative application the only difference being like : if they'll select FireFox or Konqueror as their default browser) and of course the distribution makers have paid attention to build packages compatible with the rest of the distro.

The 'compiling nightmares' he speaks about isn't something the average user will come into.

Also I didn't see how linux can be compared to unix compagnies killing each other while windows is silently rising :
- unix companies can kill each other and be put out of buisness.
- not the same for linux : you cannot put Linux out of buisness, it's not even a company ! You could put out of buisness companies making distributions. You can even physically kill some developpers. But you cannot get rid of Linux itself. It's an OpenSource projet. That means people will always have access to its code. And as long as there are at least a few hackers interested in it, you'll still see linux and linux developpement arround.

Look at DOS : DOS is a very old stuff (see recent posts on slashdot about CPM). All compagnies involved in it are either out-of buisness, or have abandonned the product long time ago... except that there's an OpenSource implementation of it. And even if companies' interest has declined, there are still coders around the wolrd working on it or using it.

Last but not least, there ARE people out there who are interested in being able to know what's inside the software they're running, and want to be able to freely hack it. There ARE real programmers that DO care about the freedom that only freenix (Linux & BSD) can offer to them.

Get the experimental OS X installer for QEMU. This will emulate an x86 processor plenty fast enough to do some assembly coding. Then you can install some GNU/Linux distribution with the tools you need. Or if you want to keep this lightweight, install FreeDOS and the NASM assembler.

You can always use freedos

So Slashdot, let's hear how you were lured into the digital life. What was it that drew you to a life of programming? How old were you when you first used a computer?

..the memories come flooding back..

Back when I was in 4th grade, my dad bought us a Franklin Ace 1000 - this was the first clone of the Apple II, and came with a 360k floppy. It was great! I did what most of us probably did with our first computer - I wrote a "guess the number" game in AppleBASIC. :-)

Over time, I got better at simple game programming. One game I made for myself was an adventure-style game along the lines of 'search for the magic item' and 'monsters may attack you as you enter an area'. Friends at school tried to get me interested in D&D, but I just saw it as a rule system for my computer game.

Later, I started to learn more about the GR and HGR graphics system on the Apple/Franklin. When War Games came out, I convinced myself I could write a war simulator that was more or less like the one in the movie. It looked great, but you could only target a few cities (and it was case sensitive - gah!) so it wasn't much fun to play.

I remember we eventually got an 8088 IBM-PC compatible clone, and how impressed I was that it had dual 360k floppy drives and a 5MB "hard card." This was originally intended for my mom and dad to do work-like stuff at home (spreadsheets, word processing) but my brother and I eventually found a few games we could run. (Anyone remember Sopwith?)

And I started the FreeDOS Project in 1994, while I was a physics student. But at the time, computers were just a hobby for me.

Heh, but I didn't even get interested in computers as a career until my 3rd year at university. Internships for physics students were hard to find that year, so I got a job doing some programming at a local small company. After graduation, I went back to that company to do system administration, and maybe a little programming.

..and the rest is history?

Hi, I'm the coordinator for the FreeDOS Project, and webmaster for FreeDOS.org. Looks like we're getting a minor slashdotting. Thanks, guys! :-) In case the main page becomes unavailable, you can use this list of mirrors instead:

slashdot.php or slashdot.html

The primary mirror site is at sourceforge:

http://freedos.sourceforge.net/

This is somewhat like somebody trying to get people to work on an open-source version of DOS. Sure, you get your freedom of the free software, but who would want to use DOS?

You'd be surprised as to how many devices embed FreeDOS, and how many firmware update discs include it. In addition, some users of video game emulators, EPROM programmers, and other time-sensitive applications still swear by DOS, as the application runs in what is effectively kernel mode and doesn't get randomly interrupted.

What ? No FreeDOS ? Nor links ?

Google are a bunch of insensitive clods !!!

Have you tried any of the OSS DOS emulators on the 'net? Some of the first Google hits are DOSBox (looks really good and focused on gaming), DOSEMU (hmmm...is it still updated?) and the big boy FreeDOS (very active community).

I haven't tried any of these personally in quite a while so YMMV.

Around here (and I'm sure in most big cities) you can buy decent off-lease computers that are only a couple years old for cheap cheap cheap (like under $200), without an OS (well, they sometimes give you Freedos or something with it).

M$ undoubtedly suspects that those machines are targets for pirated copies of Windows, and most likely they are largely right about that. At least in my case, I have installed FC2, but I'm sure I'm in the minority.

The point remains that with hardware so cheap, the cost of the OS can easily be more than the computer itself, if you go with a commercial OS.

A thrift store near me has their POS running a dos program in window mode on some very nice hardware (but a pretty bad OS :).

Ok, so I don't shop there very much, but I keep thinking those people are wasting their money. Why, they could just go on ebay and get a few '386s and load freedos on them.

Corporates who need to upgrade to a new server for performance, yet can't afford to spend huge amounts of money upgrading the applications to suit the newer OSes.

Yes, there will always be a need for legacy application support for exactly the reason you stated. But you can get your backwards compatibility with software emulators these days while still getting excellent performance and reliability. My guess is that those legacy apps were designed to run as efficient as possible on hardware that by today's standards we would consider junk, so with modern hardware, these apps should still run really well even in emulation. So really, where's the problem with getting rid of DOS compatibility in hardware? This is too small of a niche to be keeping back the rest of the industry.

Something else I haven't seen anyone mention yet is FreeDOS.

I got in, but it was veeeeeeeeery slow. Here's a mirror:

hamster mirror

1. An early and very beneficial agreement with IBM to use its version of DOS and pay it per liscense which greatly helped in establishing the company.

There is one detail to this people really should know. Microsoft (ofcourse) didn`t make dos (now cloned). They bought it from a hobyist. It was a clone from the then dominant CP/M OS (now open). It was cloned by a hobyist in his spare time not unlike other populair operating systems ;-) Soon after microsoft started selling dos bundled with the ibm pc (and clones) cp/m market share started dropping.

I mailed to author of this arcticle. Mel is acronym from "Multi-Edit Lite" and it can be downloaded from Free DOS software page. Unfortunatelly, it is simple text editor, not a word processor. (and it's shareware, not freeware) :(

As for free DOS word processors, there is thing called "GalaxyWrite". Still working download link are in an old FreeDOS newsitem. It also mentions program called "AsEasyAs" - spreadsheet for DOS. Can't guarrantee anything, as I don't have tested them yet, but I hope this helps for somebody!

It is not correct to say that DOS is limited to 640k.

1. You can make more conventional memory than 640 kb (by using A0000-B7FFFF memory range in CGA/EGA/VGA text mode)
2. You can load TSR program into UMB (maps on free memory ranges below 1 MB) and HMA (1024k-1088k range)
3. Most of today's programs knows how to use XMS (provided by FDXMS/HIMEM) and EMS (provided by EMM386) memory
4. 32-bit protected mode programs can manage whole memory if neither XMS nor EMS are present

For more information: FreeDOS Technote #202

Dell has offered FreeDOS on their systems for a while now. Here are some links: 15 Jan 2004 and Aug 9 2003. Slashdot also ran a story about FreeDOS on Dells before.

Dell has offered FreeDOS on their systems for a while now. Here are some links: 15 Jan 2004 and Aug 9 2003. Slashdot also ran a story about FreeDOS on Dells before.

I can think of some games that were written in DOS that would work great on FreeDOS. Some of these games have their own grphics engines that work (speedy) better than Windows.

Yes, FreeDOS does work great as a game platform. At one point, I started a FreeDOS for Gamers page, but I haven't finished it (need to add EMM386 info.) Some of that info may help you.

Actually, one of the links (FreeDOS.org) was to a list of mirrors. This was intentional, to prevent swamping the host provider with too much traffic. The last time we were slashdotted, I set up this page so that visitors could hit mirror sites instead of the main one (if the main site became slow). -jh

When TODO list will be completed.

maybe not rocket science, but still impressive as many people at the time were only aware of pre-emptive multi-tasking on the Amiga.

Quite frankly I think implementing Minix from scratch is a hell of a lot more interesting than anything DOS ever did.

True. (Dirty)DOS of course being originally based on CPM which in turn was based on Unix!

However what I and it appears many others like about DOS is the fact it is just so simple, it really is nothing fancy, nothing clever, it just works. Note how active the FreeDOS homepage is. The simplicity of early DOS versions has also allowed them to be supported on a wide range of hardware including non x86 hardware. It still turns up in the most unlikely of places for single dedicated tasks. There are now many other OS's that are used for embedded tasks but the fact that DOS is still implemented for such tasks says a lot.

For a personal project I recently decided to run it under DOS for reliability and simplicity, security. Security??!?!?!! Yes, DOS programs run as root but with the right admin you can lock a DOS sytem down to the point where it is virtually impossible to hack. When I look at Linux it has become complicated by features, to the point that keeping it simple or securely looking it down is getting more and more difficult. Note: I use Linux and have played with numerous simplified Linux distros, the problem is so many distros come with too many features installed and services enabled. I like DOS for those tasks where you want nothing more than a well known supported file system, a simple bit of networking (inc. IP) and just your app.

Still I have also played with Minix and am personally interested in seeing it evolve more. However like someone else said "what's the point", from a techi point I am very much with the "because crowd" however on the practical side I think if this project had started up several years ago it would be more active. I really wish this new Minix project well however currently I fail to see the demand. Still early days....

you mean freedos? http://www.freedos.org/

Have you looked at FreeDOS? Under the hood DOS is simple, heavily documented, reliable and capable of doing many tasks, it can also be very well secured with the right tools or modifications. For example many people forget that COMMAND.COM can be replaced with other programs and there are many tools around designed to block actions or commands from being executed (hint for security look at BBS SYSOP security tools that many people like myself used to write).

When I noticed my web usage indicated most of the visitors to my site used IE, I was surprised. I emailed the mailing lists and asked if that sounded right to everyone.

The answer was equally surprising. Most users there said they have their user agent string set to mimic IE (most of these were using Opera, but a fair number were using Mozilla/Firefox.)

I think it's important that if you use Mozilla/Firefox (or Opera) that you let your browser identify itself as such. Yes, it is sometimes very convenient to "fake" your browser to report itself as IE (some bank sites, for example) but I think it sends the wrong message to webmasters. For all the world, it looked to me like my users were running IE, and I actually considered tweaking the web design to better suit IE. (Damn me for my weakness!) Glad I didn't.

When I noticed my web usage indicated most of the visitors to my site used IE, I was surprised. I emailed the mailing lists and asked if that sounded right to everyone.

The answer was equally surprising. Most users there said they have their user agent string set to mimic IE (most of these were using Opera, but a fair number were using Mozilla/Firefox.)

I think it's important that if you use Mozilla/Firefox (or Opera) that you let your browser identify itself as such. Yes, it is sometimes very convenient to "fake" your browser to report itself as IE (some bank sites, for example) but I think it sends the wrong message to webmasters. For all the world, it looked to me like my users were running IE, and I actually considered tweaking the web design to better suit IE. (Damn me for my weakness!) Glad I didn't.

The reason I first installed Linux is simple: I was a UNIX sysadmin at the time, and it made most sense for my desktop environment at work to be the same environment that I managed on the servers (for familiarity, same toolsets, ...) and I installed it at home because I found I was just as productive on Linux as I was on Windows. My first Linux was SLS 1.03 (which only the old-timers here will recognize.)

I continue to run Linux at work (now Fedora Core) because I find it's easier to use and manage. The software is familiar (Mozilla for browser/mail, OpenOffice/StarOffice for most office apps, and java versions of the few non-native apps that I need at work ... like calendaring.) When new Windows viruses are announced, I sort of groan because I know it means I'll have more virus email hit my Inbox, but otherwise I'm unaffected.

At home, I'm still running Linux (again, Fedora Core) because everything I need is there. What does a home desktop need to do? Mozilla for browser/mail, OpenOffice for the annual Christmas letter ... I installed some third-party stuff so I can rip MP3s, listen to them, and dump them onto my iPod. I can download photos from my camera, and modify/tweak/enhance/print those photos with the GIMP. Not a lot else that I need to do ... I play some games on Linux, sure ('Enemy Territory' is my current favorite.) Oh yeah, and I also have a development environment (DOSEmu) for working on FreeDOS (also useful when playing old DOS games.)

Why do I need Windows?

This may sound stupid but if it matters to you remember that MS isn't the only dos, if you like FOSS there's freedos. Also, since you said that your runing Linux as a native desktop Im guessing that the installation is not as minimal as possible, If you get rid of X and all that (this is considering its for a dedicated machine) and maybee try a modular kernel it would pribibly be much faster (insert distro propaganda here).

Windows is changing rapidly, in ways that are likely to make programs incompatable with older versions (the better to force upgrades with, I'm sure).

Okay, I'm following you so far...

If they want to work on it as a hobby and have fun doing so, more power to them. I just don't see it as being something overly useful.

HELLO! You already explained exactly why this is useful. In 10 years, when I want to run some "ancient" program that doesn't work with the latest version of Windows, I'll either have to dig up an old copy of XP or I could just download and use ReactOS for free. I already use FreeDOS for similar reasons.

Why the reliance on Linux. FreeDos should fit into 2 Mb, and (according to the interweb) DVPeg will fit into 120k. No network support, but it'll be really simple to set up.

IBM is still selling PC-DOS for $67.

And now you can get DOS for the cost of disks and broadband.

If linux and bsd are blond and brunett, which o.s. is the redhead

That would be FreeDos obviously.

Windows would be a 300 pound guy with lots of stubble chomping on a cigar.

Commander Keen was ported to the GameBoy Color very shortly before the GameBoy Advance was released. Just get that to use in your GBA.

Yup, here it is: Commander Keen for GB.

Looks like Duke Nukem (the side-scroller) was also released on the GB.

Interestingly enough, you can also find DOOM and DOOM II for GBA. Some reviews indicate that DOOM/GBA was a pretty good game (basically identical to the DOS version, missing a few levels.)

You can't use CD-RW like a floppy disk. It's not "random access writable". And you can only write a CD-RW so many times before you can't use it anymore...

CD-RW drives support packet writing with appropriate drivers. And how many times can you rewrite a floppy again, especially given the urine-poor quality control of today's floppy drives and media?

[SSH is] Practically unheard of outside the Unix world.

So is telnet, or any other shell access.

LCDs are way more expensive than CRTs.

Only in situations with extremely high interest rates, when it's best to invest money in the financial markets rather than in capital goods. Otherwise, replacing an aging CRT with an LCD pays for itself in energy cost savings.

Try running XP on that old 386.

Replacing a 386 mobo with a Crusoe mobo would soon pay for itself in energy cost savings. And still, what about FreeDOS? Would you consider it a better deal than MS-DOS for those who aren't running Windows?

Pigeons carrying data? Web page has photos of baby birds as a way to replicate the system, photos of turtles for no good reason.

I think the posts for April Fools Day have started to arrive. Damn, it's early this year.

Better get mine in, then: LZip for DOS - Yes, lzip 2.0 has been ported to DOS! Lzip is an advanced file compression utility that generates smaller file sizes than either gzip or bzip2, and does so much faster. Lzip can achieve these goals because it it based on a so-called "lossy" compression scheme.

Well, a stripped-down version with a broken installer. The FreeDOS people warn against using this CD for anything other than flashing a corrupted BIOS. Those who try to install FreeDOS from this CD may end up with a trashed boot sector.

Well, a stripped-down version with a broken installer. The FreeDOS people warn against using this CD for anything other than flashing a corrupted BIOS. Those who try to install FreeDOS from this CD may end up with a trashed boot sector.

FreeDOS is another altrnative depending on your requirements.

I've been using this from CVS for about a month, and it only reads from the ipod. Write support is planned for the future.

In the meantime, you may consider GTKPod, a very nice GNOME interface to read/write songs to your iPod. It even supports AAC formats. I have 20GB iPod, and I've been very happy with GTKPod.

Web site: http://gtkpod.sourceforge.net/

Example: http://www.freedos.org/jhall/ipod/

this happened to a website i had, but the idiots that ripped the site forgot to copy the stylesheet and left it linked to ours, so the next day their site was pink and purple, and a home for gay pride

I run the FreeDOS.org web site, and we have several volunteer mirror sites. Once in a while, a mirror site stops getting updated, and I take them off the mirror list and notify the mirror's owner (if I still have the contact info.)

It so happens that one mirror site hasn't been updated in over 2 years, but they still refer to an image-rotator CGI that is hosted on FreeDOS.org. That CGI now generates an 800x600 "hey dummy! this mirror site is way out of date!" message.

Unfortunately, no one has contacted me and the site is still up. So I assume the mirror site owner is out to lunch. He still gets hits, though (I see the CGI in my access logs.)

Are there any OSS projects or standards creation efforts for universal, OS-independent, product firmware updaters?

A number of new motherboards come with firmware updating software on a freedos boot disk. That way, you just slam the disk into your floppy drive, boot and go.

Less for the chap who writes the firmware update to worry about because there's less there to go wrong at a critical moment during an update than requiring a full installation of Windows XP to be running while you're trying to update something.

And a gen-yoo-wine boot disk that you can actually give to your customers without having to cough up per-unit royalties!

Without a Microsoft monoculture, he said, most of the recent progress in information technology could not have happened.
Really? Could someone more familiar with Microsoft and their products kindly give me examples?

• Samba
• FreeDOS
• WINE
• The XBOX Linux Project
• Ximian Evolution
• Open Office
• Mozilla
• etc...

MS-DOS should be next, Then Windows 3.1. They are not usable for OSes today except in very limited circumstances,

I beg to differ, at least to a degree. Win3.1 is indeed obsolete, and MS-DOS, yeah that train left the station too. But DOS itself is in use in a great many dedicated control/monitoring and other industrial setups and won't be going away any time soon. It works, and it doesn't crash. See freedos for one example of a freely distributable DOS that's under active development and does the job. I'm sure I'm not unique in stating that my DOS compilers (PowerBASIC and Turbo C) still see fairly regular use.

Very informative, but....

> A lot of people without a solid understanding of operating system design hold such mistaken ideas. The reality is that designing a reliable system for capable hardware is relatively easy, and has been for decades.

Ok, I have taken a 500-level CS Operating Systems design class which covered NT and many *nix flavors, but noone ever told me how relatively easy it was to design a reliable system. I beg to differ. If designing a reliable system was so easy, then tell me why we still bother to maintain old linux kernels at all? If they were so reliable, then the code should be frozen, right? DOS was very stable, at least from my perception -keyword:percievable stability-, so designing its replica should be easy, right? I don't agree. If you followed the progress of FreeDOS, then you might wonder why it wasn't easy for them to complete version 1.0 5-6 years ago? Maybe they don't have all the time in the world, but I am not convinced that designing a reliable system is easy. Or maybe I should say: Designing is easy, building and testing is rather difficult. Is that what you meant? Also, I'd like to know what your definition of stability and reliabilty mean because you'll get different answers from NASA-geeks, IT-nuts, code-monkeys, and mom and pop. Personally, I don't care how fast my SOYO motherboard will degrade from exposure to solar radiation, therefore it is reliable in that sense. But ask anyone who deals with ruggedness and most modern PC boards will not be in their wishlist. On the other hand, I do care if my board will get too hot and cause the saulder holding my RAM chips together to melt.

Ok, semantics aside, take the apparently "stable" MS-DOS 6.22 and wrap a GUI file browser/shell around it. Let's call this OS: Winblows95, or W95 for short. Let's ignore HOW this system was designed but just assume it is designed poorly and full of bugs. Even though we know the system is not ready to ship, I'm going to put out a lot of hype and maintain that this system is reliable. Is that wrong? Should people complain? Yes.

>I have no patience with those who complain about the reliability of Windows 95/98/Me.

Well, then why did you reply? My standards of a reliable OS have improved, but I still have friends and family who, not as computer adept as me, have already purchased these lame operating systems or it came with the computer. Is it their fault that they fell for the hype or felt comfortable because there workplace purchased the same OS? No. They just didnt know. Unfortunately, now they are LOCKED-IN with their proprietary drivers and games and need my help for maintaining their system. Should I complain? Yes. You see, these problems perpetuate from a software company with a 90% market share with users who trust the same operating systems their workplace or family and friends use. Noone thinks about reliablity until AFTER the fact because you weren't given a choice of Operating system when you bought your PC years ago. It was windows or mac. And would you question the reliability of a product from a BIG company?

Anyway, the damage has been done and we're still cleaning up. Obviously, if there weren't people who still use w98, then MS wouldnt waste their money keeping there support open till 2006, now would they? I don't care what was wrong with win9x and I dont care how reliable it is, I just know that winME has a lot of good drivers and can still function as an OS for mom and pop without having to spend wads of $$ on WinXP, which is even more bloated than all of the win9x series combined. I also know that it can be stripped down while XP cant (yet?). When a ghost image for a bare bones system requires more than one CD, I complain. And realize that if it were my choice, I would install some linux distro, but its not ready for mom and pop, and they are not ready for linux yet. And what happens when I'm not around? Win9x was pretty intuitive, while XP's operations are more tra

PC-DOS 1.00 Filelist and screenshot; the wrs0286 abandonware site has a PC-DOS 1.00 zip file but it's actually version 3.30.