It makes me a bit sad about how some of the FreeDOS people act egomaniacal.
Some time ago, I read something about an discussion on the web (about XHDD ?) and it was like Kindergarden.
The FreeDOS project doesn't deserve to sink so low (it's not Linux).
If you work with others, you have to learn to handle criticism and to be forgiving.
Whether you are right or not. That's what you learn at home and in (pre-)school already.
Anway, back to the technical level. It's kernal is quite good already.
Last time I checked, the experimental kernal was good enough to run Windows 3.10.
The kernel also supports FAT32, even on an 16-Bit machine (separate kernal for 808x, 8018x, NEC V-series, 80286).
Though some of the utilities did not fully support it, last time I tried them (was it Defrag ?)
If it wasn't for some minor annoyances, like a *nix-style hierarchy (nested BIN, ETC, DOC directories)
and the focus on the English language, I would have used it more often on my retro boxes.
(I like English a lot and can read it well, but at home I prefer an operating system that talks to me
in my own, native language. Makes me feel less like a foreigner. 😊)
@xjas That's another advantage of FreeDOS.
Since the core sytem is released via GPL, it can be more or less safely used
on a big number of machines without worrying about any kind of licensing trouble.
That's relaxing for anyone who wants to take along old apparatuses or precious programs into the 21th century.
IMHO, that's one of the true strenghts of FreeDOS. It is not just a random *nix distro.
It gives new life to an existing echo system.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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