Open Source OS that Uses BIOS for Drive Access?

Int13 asks: "I noticed a question in a review of a book on RAID controllers: 'Why, the author asks, do makers of controller cards put all their BIOS utilities on DOS floppies which require us to find a DOS boot disk?' The reason for this is actually very simple. DOS is one of the few mainstream operating systems that will ALWAYS boot on a PC from any supported boot device, and it doesn't require any special disk drivers at all to accomplish this task or to support any file system that has BIOS support. RAID controllers always supply BIOS support, usually in an extension ROM. This leads directly to the question: Are there any other alternative open source operating systems that will do the same? (no, not Open DOS, since it's just a DOS clone)"

"Why can't Linux use a virtual x86 box to call INT 13h when there is no driver for a particular drive type? It would also have to play nice with the BIOS data area and extended BIOS data area and respect the top of low memory, but that's only a few kilobytes at most. Then people probably wouldn't need a DOS boot disk anymore. If such a thing already exists, is there some reason the install disks for most distros don't support it?

(Before anyone tries to claim that Linux plays nice with the extended BIOS data area and the top of low memory, I can tell you from personal experience that it definitely does not, at least not by default).

Comments

Easy, yet unknown

[veldmon]

You have to compile a DOS module into the Linux kernel. It's the 3rd or 4th link when you google for "DOS linux module".

FreeDOS worked for me last night

[iamcadaver]

I just flashed my ASUS MB from a FreeDOS diskette last night. Funky screen redraws, but who cares?

I'm now MS free. b)