FreeDOS then and now

In the 1980s and 1990s, I used MS-DOS for everything. I had used MS-DOS systems for a long time, and regularly used MS-DOS and DOS applications for my work. I had taught myself C programming, and wrote DOS utilities to improve MS-DOS and expand its functionality. While I also used Linux since 1993, I thought DOS was the best system for me, with its rich catalog of useful applications that helped me as an undergraduate physics student—mostly analyzing lab data and writing papers for class.

So I was disappointed in 1994 when I read articles where Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows would do away with MS-DOS. "DOS was dead," so they said. But I didn't like Windows. If you remember what Microsoft Windows 3.1 looked like, you'll know it was clunky and awkward. If Windows 4.0 was going to be anything like that, I wanted nothing to do with it.

I started FreeDOS in 1994 with a small post to the comp.os.msdos.apps group on Usenet. Almost immediately, other developers contacted me, and we began work creating our own version of DOS that would be compatible with MS-DOS. I packaged my own extended DOS utilities, as did others, and we found other public domain or open source programs that replaced other DOS commands. A few months later, we released our first FreeDOS Alpha distribution. This interested new developers to join FreeDOS. From there, FreeDOS grew very quickly.

Our FreeDOS History page has a timeline of interesting events in FreeDOS history. Let me share just the major milestones:

1994

• Free-DOS Alpha 1 (16 September 1994)
• Free-DOS Alpha 2 (December 1994)

1995

• Free-DOS Alpha 3 (January 1995)
• Free-DOS Alpha 4 (June 1995)

1996

• FreeDOS Alpha 5 (10 August 1996)

1997

• FreeDOS Alpha 6 (November 1997)

1998

• FreeDOS Beta 1 "Orlando" (25 March 1998)
• FreeDOS Beta 2 "Marvin" (28 October 1998)

1999

• FreeDOS Beta 3 "Ventura" (21 April 1999)

2000

• FreeDOS Beta 4 "Lemur" (9 April 2000)
• FreeDOS Beta 5 "Lara" (10 August 2000)

2001

• FreeDOS Beta 6 "Midnite" (18 March 2001)
• FreeDOS Beta 7 "Spears" (7 September 2001)

2002

• FreeDOS Beta 8 "Methusalem" (7 April 2002)

2003

• FreeDOS Beta 9 RC1 (July 2003)
• FreeDOS Beta 9 RC2 (23 August 2003)
• FreeDOS Beta 9 RC3 (27 September 2003)

2004

• FreeDOS Beta 9 RC4 (5 February 2004)
• FreeDOS Beta 9 RC5 (20 March 2004)
• FreeDOS Beta 9 (28 September 2004)
• FreeDOS Beta 9 SR1 (30 November 2004)

2005

• FreeDOS Beta 9 SR2 (30 November 2005)

2006

• FreeDOS 1.0 (3 September 2006)

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

2012

• FreeDOS 1.1 (2 January 2012)

2013
2014
2015

2016

• FreeDOS 1.2 RC1 (31 October 2016)
• FreeDOS 1.2 RC2 (24 November 2016)
• FreeDOS 1.2 (25 December 2016)

Before FreeDOS 1.0, we released frequent Alpha and Beta versions. After FreeDOS 1.0, we went into a "stable" mode where FreeDOS doesn't need to change very quickly.

Earlier this week, we announced the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution. In many ways, FreeDOS has changed a lot since 1994. But under the covers, FreeDOS is still just DOS.

In our Alpha releases, FreeDOS (then "Free-DOS") was a collection of commands and a few extra utilities. Our DOS kernel was pretty bare-bones back then, and didn't support networking or CDROM drives. But FreeDOS could run a lot of popular programs and games, including compilers, and became quite popular. Over time, developers have added to FreeDOS and built it up to what it is today. FreeDOS 1.2 now includes a ton of useful utilities, graphical desktops, games, and other tools that help people to develop embedded systems, run legacy software, or just play classic DOS games.

While it's interesting to look back on how FreeDOS has changed since 1994, it's also important to mark how computing has changed in that time.

User londonpopstar on Imgur found an old Best Buy ad from October 23, 1994. That's the same year we started the FreeDOS Project. Check out what personal computing looked like at the time, via this sample:

Personal computers were based on the Intel '486 processor in 1994. The Pentium processor had been available since 1993, but the cost-to-performance wasn't really there until 1994 or 1995. It's safe to say that most users at home ran a '486. Notebooks were a thing, but were much bulkier than the ones you find today. And to make them cost-effective, most ran a '486 in 1994. From the Best Buy ad:

	Model	CPU	Speed	Memory	Drive	Cost
Desktops	IBM	486DX2	50MHz	4MB	363MB	$1397
	Acer	486DX2	66MHz	8MB	540MB	$1576
	Packard Bell	486DX2	66MHz	8MB	720MB	$1798
	Compaq	486DX2	66MHz	8MB	420MB	$1798
Laptops	Compaq, 8.4" display	486DX2	40MHz	4MB	250MB	$2598
	Compaq, 9.5" display	486DX2	40MHz	4MB	250MB	$3298

Today's computers are much more powerful. Using today's Best Buy as a comparison, the most-recommended Intel desktop is a Dell Inspiron desktop with 6th Gen Intel Core i3-6100 (3.7GHz) processor, 8GB memory, and 1TB hard drive for $379.99. The top-recommended Intel laptop is a Dell Inspiron laptop with 13.3" display, 7th Gen Intel Core i5-7200U (2.5GHz) mobile processor, 8GB memory, and 256GB solid state drive for $599.99.

Let's compare. The 1994 Acer is the "middle of the road" desktop, so let's use that as our point of reference.

	1994	2016
CPU	486DX2 (32-bit)	Core i3 (64-bit)
Speed	66MHz	3.7GHz = 3,700MHz
Memory	8MB	8GB = 8,000MB
Drive	540MB	1TB = 1,000GB = 1,000,000MB
Cost	$1,576	$380

So desktop computers have gone from 32-bit to dual-core 64-bit, now 56× faster, 1000× the memory, and over 1800× the storage. All that for a quarter the price (not adjusted dollars). Today's laptops are one-fifth the price but over 62× faster, 2000× the memory, and 1000× the storage. Computers have gotten faster and cheaper.

And that's if you even use a traditional "computer" anymore. Many people use the Cloud for most of their day-to-day computing: responding to email, writing documents, or planning events. For that, you can just as easily use something like a Google Chromebook (most are $300) which has very little on-board storage but provides a platform to do everything via the Cloud.

But when you think about it, much of your "computing" tasks can be done on a smartphone. The ever-present smartphone does pretty much everything your 1994 computer could do, and also includes a phone, GPS, and camera. Comparison to 1994 is pretty tough; back then, the most popular mobile phone was the Nokia, but it was just something you called people with.

And how you run FreeDOS has changed, too. In 1994, almost everyone ran FreeDOS directly on hardware. Typically, you installed FreeDOS in a separate hard drive partition on your computer, and used a boot-selector to let you boot FreeDOS when you wanted. But today, most people prefer to run FreeDOS inside a virtual machine or PC emulator; we also recommend that on our website. You can still run FreeDOS on a modern computer, but it's just easier to use a PC emulator instead.

I'm amazed at how far FreeDOS has changed. From 1994, when you ran FreeDOS directly on a '486 computer with 8MB memory and 500MB hard drive—to today, when most people run FreeDOS inside a virtual machine on a much more powerful computer. Computing has definitely changed. But it's nice to know that FreeDOS is still just DOS, and you can run your old DOS programs on it.

More screenshots from FreeDOS 1.2

I use FreeDOS to develop FreeDOS, to run a few favorite programs, and to play games. And it's for that last one that I want to share a few more screenshots.

I run Linux (Fedora 25) on my computer at home, and I boot FreeDOS inside a PC emulator. These days, I usually use QEMU. So here are some screenshots of FreeDOS 1.2 running a few popular shareware DOS games inside QEMU:

Blood:

Doom:

Heretic:

Jill of the Jungle:

Commander Keen:

Quake:

Rise of the Triad:

Tomb Raider:

What were your favorite classic DOS games?

Screenshots from FreeDOS 1.2

I hope you've had a chance to download the new FreeDOS 1.2 distribution. I am very excited for the new release. I hope you enjoy it!

If you are new to FreeDOS, I wanted to share a few screenshots of some applications running on FreeDOS 1.2. All screenshots captured by me with FreeDOS 1.2 running in the GNOME Boxes PC emulator (which is really QEMU).

FreeDOS command line

Foxcalc desktop calculator

FreeDOS Help

FreeDOS Edit

But you don't have to run FreeDOS only in text mode. We provide several graphical desktop environments, too. Here are a few samples.

OpenGEM

OZone

Seal

Many people like to use FreeDOS to play classic DOS games. We provide a few open source DOS games for you in FreeDOS 1.2.

Sudoku

Wings

You can also install and play your favorite classic DOS games on FreeDOS. Here are a few favorites of mine:

Jill of the Jungle, a side-scroller run-and-jump game (shareware)

Commander Keen, another side-scroller run-and-jump game (shareware)

Dark Forces, a first-person shooter set in the Star Wars universe (LucasArts)

FreeDOS 1.2

I am proud to announce the release of FreeDOS 1.2! You can download it from our website at www.freedos.org.

The latest official FreeDOS distribution is the result of the hard work from many people. Thanks to everyone in the FreeDOS Project for their work towards this new release! There are too many of you to recognize individually, but you have all helped enormously. Thank you!

DOS is one of the oldest PC operating systems. FreeDOS has an equally long history. We started the FreeDOS Project in 1994 to create a free, open source software version of DOS. We made our first Alpha release in September 1994, and our first Beta in March 1998. In September 2006, we finally released FreeDOS 1.0. And in January 2012, we released FreeDOS 1.1.

The new FreeDOS 1.2 is mostly an incremental change over FreeDOS 1.1, although you'll find a few nice surprises.

FreeDOS 1.2 now makes it easier to connect to a network. We include a revamped network setup and useful network applications to get you online. Try the Dillo web browser for a graphical web experience, or the Links web browser if you want just the text.

If you're interested in updated functionality, you can find new tools under the Utilities section. For example, FreeDOS 1.2 provides several image enhancement programs like Pngcrush and Gifsicle. Or you can enhance the DOS command line with Unix-like utilities like sed, grep, tee, head, and bc.

Many people use FreeDOS to play games, and FreeDOS 1.2 now includes several open source games for you to try. We include Freedoom and Boom for classic first-person shooter fans. Arcade-style game fans will like Wing, a familiar space shooter game, or Kiloblaster, a fast-paced arcade shooter. Classic gamers will want to try Nethack, Invaders, Sudoku, and Tetris. For those who want to play their own classic DOS games, we provide other tools like Slowdown, so you can run certain older games on a fast modern computer.

But I think the first thing you'll notice about FreeDOS 1.2 is the new installer! I wanted to make the install process an easy one, for new and experienced users alike. And we have that in the new FreeDOS 1.2 installer, thanks to Jerome Shidel. If you are a new user, the installer makes it easy to install FreeDOS and get going with a few defaults. If you're an experienced DOS user, you can unlock the Advanced installer that lets you tweak the FreeDOS install to your preference.

I'm very excited for the new FreeDOS 1.2 distribution!

Merry Christmas from FreeDOS!

Today is Christmas Day. Many people around the world are exchanging gifts and opening presents.

At the FreeDOS Project, we're also planning to give you a gift. That's right! Later today, we'll post the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution!

Check back later on this blog and on our website at www.freedos.org for the official announcement!

What's new in FreeDOS 1.2

In planning what came next after FreeDOS 1.1, we discussed if the next version should be FreeDOS 1.2 or FreeDOS 2.0. It really came down to what a modern DOS should look like.

For a while, I argued that FreeDOS should become a modern DOS, that we should try to imagine what MS-DOS would have looked like if Microsoft hadn't killed off the MS-DOS product when they released Windows95. That is an interesting thought exercise:

A modern DOS would have to update its memory model. DOS uses a segmented memory model, which made sense when the PC was a simple computing device. With the Intel 80386 processor, you could have multitasking. That's why Linux was originally written for the ‘386. So a modern DOS would also support multitasking. At some point, though, this modern DOS will break backwards compatibility with legacy DOS applications. To preserve some method of compatibility, we reasoned, a modern DOS would likely include a “sandbox” to run these legacy applications.

But when you look at it, we already have that modern DOS. That's Linux. Because Linux supports multitasking, it has a flat memory model, it does all these other things. And if you want to run legacy DOS applications, you boot FreeDOS in a PC emulator like DOSEmu.

That's not DOS. FreeDOS is still DOS, and needs to remain DOS. So we agreed the next version after FreeDOS 1.1 would be an update to FreeDOS. That's why this version is FreeDOS 1.2.

FreeDOS 1.2 is still DOS, but it's more than a mere update of FreeDOS 1.1. We've made some significant improvements.

The first thing you'll notice in FreeDOS 1.2 is the brand-new installer. Jerome Shidel wrote a new installer for us, and it looks really good! The new installer is very simple—for both new and experienced FreeDOS users. If you've used FreeDOS before, the installer will feel very familiar. At the same time, if you're completely new to FreeDOS, you'll have an easy time.

We've also included new programs and utilities in FreeDOS 1.2. In this release, we finally include some games. Since so many people use FreeDOS to play classic DOS games, it seemed a good idea to include some open source DOS games for people to try.

And we include a bunch of new utilities that we hope people will find useful. More developer utilities, more user utilities. For example, we now include some programs to help you play sounds and update graphic files. We also provide other tools that help you connect to a network, including a DOS web browser.

The additional programs also make the new FreeDOS 1.2 distribution a lot bigger. The FreeDOS 1.1 distribution was about 40MB. The new FreeDOS 1.2 comes in several formats. We provide a CDROM installer that's 419MB, and an alternate CDROM installer that's the same size. (The difference between the two CDROM installers is that one is intended for certain older computers that need to boot from CDROM in a particular way.) If your computer cannot boot from CDROM, try one of the USB fob drive installers. The “Lite” USB installer is about 30MB, and the “Full” USB installer is 415MB. Both are USB-based installers; you can write them to a USB fob drive and boot your computer with that to install FreeDOS.

Check back in tomorrow for the official release of FreeDOS 1.2!

Why FreeDOS in 2016?

People still use FreeDOS in 2016, and I expect people will continue to use it in 2017. Since around January 2015, we've averaged about 30,000 downloads of FreeDOS every month. (Obviously, I can only see what people download directly from the website.)

A few years ago, we ran a survey to see how people use FreeDOS. We found that people use FreeDOS in three different ways:

To play classic DOS games

You can play your favorite DOS games on FreeDOS. And there are a lot of great classic games to play: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Commander Keen, Rise of the Triad, Jill of the Jungle, Duke Nukem, and many others!

To run legacy software

Need to recover data from an old business program? Or maybe you need to run a report from your old finance system? Just install your legacy software under FreeDOS, and you’ll be good to go!

To develop embedded systems

Many embedded systems run on DOS, although modern systems may instead run on Linux. If you support an older embedded system, you might be running DOS. And FreeDOS can fit in very well.

These days, I think that still represents most of the usage of FreeDOS. Although I'll admit fewer people probably develop embedded systems on FreeDOS. Much of the embedded systems market has shifted to Linux, where there's more developer interest. I think the Raspberry Pi and other low-cost and low-power devices have made Linux in embedded devices very attractive, so you don't see as much DOS in embedded systems today—but you do see some DOS sometimes.

Over the years, some developers have shared with me how they use FreeDOS to run an embedded system. My all-time favorite example is a developer who used FreeDOS to power a pinball machine. FreeDOS ran some application that controlled the board, tallied the score, and updated the back display. I don't know exactly how it was built. One way I can think to design such a system is to have every bumper register a “key” on a keyboard bus, and the application simply read from that input. I thought it was cool!

People sometimes forget about legacy software, but this pops up in unexpected places. I used to be campus CIO of a small university, and we once had a faculty member bring in some floppy disks with old research data on them. The data wasn't stored in plain text files, but as DOS application data. None of our modern systems would read the old data files, so we booted a spare PC with FreeDOS, downloaded a shareware DOS program that could read the application data, and exported the data to plain text.

There are other examples of legacy software running on DOS. My favorite is the McLaren F1 supercar can only be serviced with an ancient DOS laptop. And Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin uses DOS to write his books. Those examples probably use MS-DOS, but there are likely a bunch of other legacy systems running from FreeDOS.

You can probably add a fourth category here: updating BIOS. I get a lot of email or other comments from people who still boot FreeDOS to update the BIOS in a computer system. DOS is still a safe way to do that.

The origins of FreeDOS

Going into college, MS-DOS was my favorite operating system. I used it all the time. I had built up this library of utilities I'd written myself to add new functionality to MS-DOS. I just thought DOS was a great operating system. I'd used Windows by this point—but if you remember the era, you know Windows 3.1 wasn't a great platform. I preferred doing my work at the command line, not with a mouse.

And in early 1994, I started seeing a lot of tech magazine articles, interviews with Microsoft, announcing that the next version of Windows would totally do away with MS-DOS. Essentially, Windows would kill MS-DOS. I looked at Windows 3.1 and said, “If Windows 3.2 or Windows 4.0 will be anything like Windows 3.1, I want nothing to do with it.“

Having some experience with Linux, I thought, “If developers can come together over the Internet to write a complete Unix operating system, surely we can do the same thing with DOS?”. After all, DOS was a fairly straightforward operating system compared to Unix. DOS ran one task at a time (called single-tasking) and had a simpler memory model. And I'd already written for myself a number of utilities that expanded the MS-DOS command line, so I had a head start.

I asked around the discussion groups on Usenet. While others were interested in a free DOS, no one wanted to start such a project. So I volunteered to do it.

On June 29, 1994, I posted this first announcement to comp.os.msdos.apps:

ANNOUNCEMENT OF PD-DOS PROJECT:

A few months ago, I posted articles relating to starting a public
domain version of DOS. The general support for this at the time was
strong, and many people agreed with the statement, "start writing!"
So, I have...

Announcing the first effort to produce a PD-DOS. I have written up a
"manifest" describing the goals of such a project and an outline of
the work, as well as a "task list" that shows exactly what needs to be
written. I'll post those here, and let discussion follow.

If you are thinking about developing, or have ideas or suggestions for
PD-DOS, I would appreciate direct email to me. If you just want to
discuss the merits or morals of writing a PD-DOS, I'll leave that to
the net. I'll check in from time to time to see how the discussion is
going, and maybe contribute a little to what promises to be a very
polarized debate!

I am excited about PD-DOS, and I am hoping I can get a group started!

--James Hall

PS -- of course, if this already exists, please point me to the group
leader so I can at least contribute!

Developers contacted me almost immediately! We had all written our own MS-DOS extensions, power tools that expanded what you could do on the MS-DOS command line. We pooled our utilities, and looked on public FTP sites for public domain source code to other programs that replicated the features of MS-DOS.

A note about the name: When I started the project, I didn't fully understand the nuances between “Free software” and “Public domain.” I assumed they were the same. And certainly many of the free tools we found on FTP sites were released into the public domain. So I used the name “PD-DOS” for Public Domain DOS. It only took a few weeks before I realized we wanted the protection of the GNU General Public License, which would make our DOS project a “Free software” project. By mid- to late-July, we changed the name to Free-DOS. Later, we dropped the hyphen to become FreeDOS.

We released our first Alpha distribution in September 1994. We continued to make new Alpha releases until March 1998, when I made our first Beta distribution. You can read the rest of the details on our FreeDOS History page.

My background before FreeDOS

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. Our parents wanted to expose me and my brother to computers from an early age, so they bought an Apple II clone called the Franklin Ace 1000. I'm sure the first thing we used it for was to play games. But it didn't take long before my brother and I asked “How does it work?” So our parents bought us a book about how to program in AppleSoft BASIC, and we taught ourselves.

I remember my first programs were pretty standard stuff. Eventually, I developed a fondness for creating simulations and turn-based games. For example, my friends and I played Dungeons and Dragons in our spare time, and I wrote several “D&D”-style games on the computer. A favorite hobby of mine was re-creating the computer readouts from television shows and movies. Perhaps my largest effort was a program that let you “play” global thermonuclear war, based on the 1983 WarGames movie.

Later, we replaced the Apple with an IBM PC. The BASIC environment on DOS was different from AppleSoft BASIC, but I figured it out easily enough. I continued writing programs on the PC throughout my junior high and high school years.

In 1990, I became an undergraduate physics student at the University of Wisconsin—River Falls. Even though my major was physics, I continued to write programs for myself. I learned a few programming languages like C and FORTRAN, and picked up a C compiler. I wrote lots of utilities to help me analyze lab data or add new features to the MS-DOS command line. Like many others at the time, I also created utilities that replaced and enhanced the MS-DOS commands.

The university had a computer lab, and I got an account there on the VAX and Unix systems. I really liked Unix. The command line was similar to MS-DOS, but it was more powerful. I learned to use Unix when I was in the computer labs, but I still used MS-DOS on my personal computer. By running MS-DOS, I could use my favorite programs to write papers and help me analyze lab data.

I discovered the concept of “shareware” programs, which let you try the program for free. If you found the program useful, you registered the program by sending a check to the program's author. I thought shareware was a pretty neat idea, and I found shareware programs that filled my need on MS-DOS. For example, I originally wrote papers in WordPerfect, but switched to the shareware GalaxyWrite word processor. I used AsEasyAs to do spreadsheet analysis, and Telix to dial into the university's computer lab when I needed to use a Unix system.

In 1993, I learned about a Unix system that I could run on my home computer for free. This “Linux” system seemed just as powerful as the university's Unix systems, but now I could run everything on my home computer. I installed Linux on my PC, dual-booted with MS-DOS. I thought Linux was neat, and I did use it a lot, but spent most of my time in MS-DOS. Because let's face it: in 1993, there were a lot more applications and games on MS-DOS than on Linux.

MS-DOS was my favorite operating system. I used it all the time. I had built up this library of utilities I'd written myself to add new functionality to MS-DOS. I just thought DOS was a great operating system. I'd used Windows by this point—but if you remember the era, you know Windows 3.1 wasn't a great platform. I preferred doing my work at the command line, not with a mouse.

And with that, my story leads into the origins of FreeDOS, which I'll continue tomorrow…

How I use FreeDOS

We’re almost ready for the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution, so I thought I’d answer one of the most common questions I get: “Do I use FreeDOS as my primary operating system?”

No, I don’t run FreeDOS as my primary system. That would really be impressive!

I run Linux at home. Technically, we also have a Mac, but that’s just there to manage iTunes purchases and push music and audiobooks to our iPods. My primary system is Linux. My laptop is a Lenovo X1 Carbon (first gen) running Fedora 25 with GNOME 3.

The tools I use every day include: Google Chrome, Firefox, and GNOME Web to browse the web; Gedit to edit text or simple code (such as Bash); GNU Emacs to edit program code (I prefer C); GNOME Terminal to ssh to my personal server and to the FreeDOS website; RhythmBox to listen to music.

I run FreeDOS in a virtual machine. I use DOSEmu if I’m writing FreeDOS code, so I can use GNU Emacs on Linux to write code and immediately compile it in FreeDOS via DOSEmu. That’s really convenient because DOSEmu maps a folder in your home directory as the C: drive. But I don’t write a lot of code these days.

If I need to run FreeDOS as though it’s running on hardware, such as testing the upcoming FreeDOS 1.2 release, I use GNOME Boxes (which is really QEMU).

FreeDOS 1.2 press kit

Are you writing an article about FreeDOS 1.2? I've created a press kit that includes the history of FreeDOS and information about the development of FreeDOS 1.2. With this press kit, I wanted to provide some additional information and resources about the upcoming FreeDOS 1.2 release. If you are writing an article about FreeDOS, feel free to use this information to help you. The press kit also includes a bunch of screenshots and other images that you can use.

You can download everything here: press-kit.zip

If you prefer to do an interview, I can make myself available. I respond quickly to email interview questions, and usually write long responses (this is good for quote-mining). Or we can arrange a phone or video interview, if you prefer. Email me at jhall@freedos.org

The official FreeDOS 1.2 should be available on Sunday, December 25! Look for it on www.freedos.org.

Almost there with FreeDOS 1.2

If you read my blog, you are probably also following that we are very close to FreeDOS 1.2. We released the FreeDOS 1.2 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) on Halloween, October 31. And earlier today on US Thanksgiving, November 24, we posted the FreeDOS 1.2 RC2.

You can find more info about the FreeDOS 1.2 RC2 release at my Open Source Software & Usability blog: FreeDOS 1.2 Release Candidate 2.

I'm very excited by the work everyone has put into these test releases. I think the FreeDOS 1.2 release will be one of our best-tested versions. Thank you to everyone who contributes to FreeDOS: developers, testers, and users.

So, what's new in FreeDOS 1.2? This new version doesn't change the game for FreeDOS in a very significant way. If you are on the freedos-devel mailing list, you may remember that we discussed what the next version of FreeDOS after FreeDOS 1.1 should look like. For a while, I thought we should think about what "DOS" might look like in 2016, if Windows hadn't displaced MS-DOS. I thought the next FreeDOS would be "FreeDOS 2.0" and would be more "modern."

But in the end, others convinced me that FreeDOS is still DOS, and we shouldn't look to change it. And they are right. FreeDOS wouldn't be "DOS" if it didn't look like DOS and act like DOS. FreeDOS still needs to be a DOS-compatible operating system. All of your DOS applications need to "just work" on FreeDOS. If we break any of that, then FreeDOS isn't "DOS" anymore. So we decided the next version should be an incremental improvement, and thus we are working toward "FreeDOS 1.2."

In FreeDOS 1.2, we changed many of the packages. Some packages were replaced, deprecated by newer and better packages. We also added other packages. And we expanded what we should include in the FreeDOS distribution. Where FreeDOS 1.0 and 1.1 where fairly spartan distributions with only "core" packages and software sets, the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution includes a rich set of additional packages. We even include games.

But the biggest change you are likely to notice in FreeDOS 1.2 is the updated installer. Jerome Shidel wrote an entirely new FreeDOS install program, and it looks great! We focused on keeping the new installer simple and easy to use. While many DOS users in 2016 are experienced DOS programmers and DOS power users, we often see many new users to FreeDOS, and I wanted to make the install process pleasant for them. The default mode for the installer is very straightforward, and you only have to answer a few questions to install FreeDOS on your system. There's also an "Advanced" mode where power users can tweak the install and customize the experience.

Please download the new FreeDOS 1.2 RC2 and let us know what you think. If you have problems, report them to the freedos-devel mailing list.

As always, I encourage you to install FreeDOS in a PC emulator or "virtual machine," especially if you already have another operating system (such as Windows) on your computer. A PC emulator allows you to install FreeDOS inside your regular operating system, and makes testing the new FreeDOS a low-risk experience.

Power users can also benefit from using a PC emulator, because you can use different virtual machines to test different things in FreeDOS. That's actually how I use FreeDOS on my own system. (I use GNOME Boxes, which is actually an instance of QEMU. I sometimes also use DOSEMU, especially if I'm developing programs for FreeDOS.)

Looking ahead to FreeDOS 1.2

Have you been testing the pre-releases of the upcoming FreeDOS 1.2 release? Jerome and others have been doing a great job putting this together, and I think we are almost "there" for a final FreeDOS 1.2 release.

We have only a few minor changes based on the latest 1.2-pre23. So we are planning the next one to be the release candidate! We are looking at the following release schedule:

10/31 - FreeDOS 1.2 RC1
11/24 - FreeDOS 1.2 RC2
12/25 - FreeDOS 1.2 official release

I think Jerome described the holiday-based release schedule best with this:

1.2 RC1 on 10/31/16, Scary release
1.2 RC2 on 11/24/16, Thankful if not needed
1.2 Final on 12/25/16, Gift to all FreeDOS users

I'd really appreciate everyone testing the heck out of this. We want to find (and fix!) any issues that still remain. Watch for official announcements on the FreeDOS website for each of the release candidates.

As always, please continue to test the latest FreeDOS 1.2-pre23 and report any issues. We'll work those fixes into the release candidate. You can download the pre-release version at ibiblio.

Updating the FreeDOS Wiki

I'm updating the FreeDOS website, and as part of that work, I am updating the FreeDOS Wiki.

This phase of the update is mostly cosmetic: moving the FreeDOS Wiki website address. We host the FreeDOS website and the FreeDOS Wiki at different locations: the website via a private webserver at Amazon, and the wiki at our project website at SourceForge:

freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki

The wiki will still run from SourceForge, but you'll soon be able to access it more directly at:

wiki.freedos.org

In later phases, I plan to go through the FreeDOS Wiki to update the "landing" page and make sure other pages on the wiki are well organized.