I'm not so certain that it's failed. I've actually never found a DOS game which is incompatible with the FreeDOS kernel, although I have had issues (at times) with CTMOUSE, for instance. The only reason I don't use FreeDOS day to day is because of the lack of nested menus in FDCONFIG.SYS.

I don't use freedos, but I use cutemouse and himemx, both of which appear to have resulted from or been motivated by freedos existing. So freedos hasn't failed me. But it's open source, so you're expected to make it better as needed. If you don't already know coding, you just have more work to do.

The ting is QHimem is way better than HimemX, but there have been some kind on falling out, and now QHimem is unavailable from the official site, and mirrors are scarse, just like few years ago with HXDOS. But QHimem author is not dead, just pissed.

Then QHIMEM became XMGR (which is available).

That's too bad--I didn't know it was drying up. In its current state, I still find it useful to boot and flash a bios on most systems.

I use FreeDOS on most of my DOS PCs, works great for me. The OS is not "beta" or incomplete in any way. Some of its utilities might be, but like any DOS you can pick and choose whatever mouse, CD-ROM, EMS driver, etc. you want & tweak everything so that it works for you; that's part of the fun of running a DOS system. I have several machines running a mix of 1.1 & 1.2 in current, active use. You have to remember it's not MS-DOS (or a re-badged clone like PC-DOS) so expecting it to behave exactly 100% the same way in all edge cases with no tweaks is gonna give you problems. But it does its job really well for what I use it for.

Jim Hall was interviewed on one of the big Linux podcasts a while ago; he mentioned FreeDOS sometimes sees ~30 000 downloads a month which would make it the envy of a lot of smaller Linux distros. (He also came across as a supremely nice, friendly & humble guy with none of the ginormous ego problems that other "big name" Linux/OSS personalities seem to suffer from. So there's that.)

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.

Despite the limitations, I continue to use MS-DOS 6.22 in my systems and in 86Box, mostly out of nostalgic sake, and since I was accustomed to using MS versions of DOS from version 3.1 (PC-DOS).

Controlling config.sys and autoexec.bat are more easier, maybe because I've grown accustomed to it and all the files that come with MS-DOS. I see no reason (for me) to use FreeDOS now, other during the experimental testing last time.

Thats the point, MS-Dos 6.22 and Ms-Dos 7.1 with UMBPCI or URAM or some other real mode UMB enabler gives you more compatible system, with so mutch free conventional memory. (Dos 7.1) Is in a legal gray area, but you can legally download Windows 98SE boot disk, and nowhere there is an explicit instruction that i can not SYS A: C: ...

Cyberdyne wrote:

MS-Dos 6.22 and Ms-Dos 7.1 [...] gives you more compatible system, with so mutch free conventional memory.

Have you actually used a recent version of FreeDOS that's been properly set up? I'm guessing not. Your assertation up there just isn't true and 15 minutes of config work can demonstrate that.

My main FreeDOS system boots to 632kB conventional memory with EMS & all sound card drivers, and runs 99% of everything. CD-ROM, mouse, Zip drive, etc. are loadable high from the command line as needed (and take far less mem than any "period correct" utility did.) For that extra 1% of things it can't run, I can choose Microsoft's memory managers instead from a boot menu.

One of my Mac Minis also runs FreeDOS. Try that with your ancient MS-DOS 6.22. "Less compatible" my ass.

If you just boot from the liveCD the config you get is OK for a start but not exactly tightly tuned. JUST LIKE MS-DOS, you need to do some tweaking to make it work perfectly for whatever use-case you want. As with any DOS system, what you can run depends almost entirely on how you set it up.

And let's not rewrite history with nostalgia glasses and pretend MS-DOS never had any bugs or random BS incompatibilities between versions either. It had plenty.

I think what's missing from FreeDOS is support for lightweight systems. Systems that don't have a CD-ROM or USB, or even an HDD.

I love CTMOUSE. It's super small so it's easy to keep along games that fit on a single floppy.

^^ how so ??
FreeDOS can boot from a floppy and you certainly don't need any CD or USB drivers, or even a memory manager. The ability to run on an 8088 is written into the design specs, although 386 code has been known to occasionally accidentally slip in (and is subsequently fixed, as that's considered a bug.) You can also grab Svarog86 which is a single-floppy FreeDOS distro specifically intended for such machines.

Maybe FreeDOS is better these days, I certainly want it to work because things such as improved filesystem support are definitely appreciated.

I tried it not more than a couple of years ago, it was still a hassle to install, and had compatibility issues with some programs I was running (possibly a flashing utility). MSDOS didn't exhibit the same issue.

I definitely appreciate the third party drivers for functional mouse, memory, and CDROM access with minimal memory usage. It made creating a functional DOS games box much easier than the prime days of DOS, particularly the horrors of DOS 4.01..

xjas wrote:

^^ how so ??
FreeDOS can boot from a floppy and you certainly don't need any CD or USB drivers, or even a memory manager. The ability to run on an 8088 is written into the design specs, although 386 code has been known to occasionally accidentally slip in (and is subsequently fixed, as that's considered a bug.) You can also grab Svarog86 which is a single-floppy FreeDOS distro specifically intended for such machines.

I'll check out that distribution, I didn't know there were several flavours of FreeDOS out there.

I was referring to the official Website where you do need a CD-ROM or a usb device to install it.

You can use the base install to make whatever boot disk you want.

xjas wrote:

And let's not rewrite history with nostalgia glasses and pretend MS-DOS never had any bugs or random BS incompatibilities between versions either. It had plenty.

Yep. Just discovered a new(?) one in MS-DOS 6.x that causes certain programs to corrupt the video output if "MODE ????,R" is used on CGA (3.30 works fine, but that won't do for my 2GB CF card). Now I'm kind of curious if that Sv86 thing would do better... might give it a spin later.

Cyberdyne wrote:

Just like to hear what you guys think of this all...

To be honest, I never got the project. MS-DOS 6.22 (or even older versions) are readily available and easy to install. I've never had a problem running a DOS game using it.

vvbee wrote:

I don't use freedos, but I use cutemouse and himemx, both of which appear to have resulted from or been motivated by freedos existing. So freedos hasn't failed me. But it's open source, so you're expected to make it better as needed. If you don't already know coding, you just have more work to do.

I'm pretty sure I was using CuteMouse long before FreeDos ever existed and have never had a problem using MS-DOS 6.22's built-in conventional memory manager freeing up more than enough RAM for the pickiest of games.

RobertJ wrote:

MS-DOS 6.22 (or even older versions) are readily available and easy to install.

Uh.....it isn't.

leileilol wrote:

Uh.....it isn't.

Not legally, anyway.