FreeDOS

The purpose of FreeDOS is to be a Operating system complete, free, and 100% compatible MS-DOS.

FreeDOS was known at its beginnings under the name of “PD-DOS” then “Free-DOS”. This project was launched in 1994 by a student accustomed to use MS-DOS, appreciating its simplicity and the absence of problems involved in the rights of access (root/administrator). This year, Microsoft announced the stop of the support for DOS, replaced by a new version of Microsoft Windows.

Under DOS, all is made starting from the Ligne of order, truths specialists being able to achieve very sophisticated tasks (as under UNIX). According to their tastes, certain users prefer the line of order to an graphical interface for reasons of effectiveness, functionalities and of ergonomics. Indeed, certain tasks can be carried out more easily and more quickly in line of order, in particular the batch processings. Moreover, the use of the mouse, omnipresent and quasi essential under graphical interface, is not appraisal by everyone.

With the abandonment of DOS by Microsoft which turned definitively to Windows, the users were to expect a reduction in the possible evolutions of the line of order. Indeed, all the efforts of the editor were henceforth devoted to improve the functionalities and ergonomics of its graphical interface. FreeDOS thus makes it possible the line of order to continue to evolve/move Windows parallel to.

Today, FreeDOS is ideal for all those which want to provide a version of DOS without having to pay royalties to be able to use it. FreeDOS will also function on old material, in emulators DOS and, in embarked systems.

FreeDOS can be contained on only one diskette!

History

Several versions beta and pre-release are succédé:

0.10 - contained some basic utilities: clear (similar to cls ), echo , more , rem , standard , worm , wait (like pause )
0.11 - addition of date , test , time
0.12 - addition of choose
0.13 - corrections of errors and cleaning
0.14 - addition of tee (like the “tee” of UNIX)
0.15 - addition of bgc (color of background), fgc (color of before plan), man (like the man of UNIX)

…

1.0 - clear replaced by cls , man replaced by help , wait replaced by pause , bgc and fgc integrated in cls . Addition of LED , find , reboot , unix2dos .

Final version 1.0 is available since the September 3rd 2006, on the one hand in the form of a Disquette of boot , and on the other hand in the form of CD-ROM (downloadable free or available to the order for those which cannot download it, or which wish to bring a financial support), with the choice in initial version or extended, with or without the source code.

External bonds

Official site of FreeDOS, on which one finds the files IMG and ISO (including with sources) in order to create a diskette of boot or a complete CD-ROM of installation.
OpenGEM, an graphical interface (GUI), inspired of GEM, supporting FreeDOS.

Random links: