FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made of up many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project.
We welcome new users to FreeDOS. You can contribute to the FreeDOS Project by downloading our latest release and telling us what you think. We have a bug tracking system that helps you report problems and submit requests, and otherwise tell us how to improve FreeDOS. By participating in the development and debugging process, you help everyone.
FreeDOS aims to be a complete, free, 100% MS-DOS compatible operating system (mostly achieved except Windows compatibility - Windows standard-mode works on FreeDOS, but 386-mode / WfW 3.11 does not.) See our Bug Tracker for details.
A short list of things possible with FreeDOS today:
* Easy multiboot with Win95-2003 and NT/XP/ME
* FAT32 file system and large disk support (LBA)
* LFN support (with several tools, and FreeCOM (COMMAND.COM).)
* LBACACHE - disk cache (harddisks in CHS and LBA mode, diskette)
* Memory Managers: HIMEM, EMM386, UMBPCI
* SHSUCDX (MSCDEX replacement) and CD-ROM driver (XCDROM)
* CUTEMOUSE - Mouse driver with scroll wheel support
* FDAPM - APM info/control/suspend/poweroff, ACPI throttle, HLT energy saving...
* XDMA - UDMA driver for DOS: up to 4 harddisks
* MPXPLAY - media player for mp3, ogg, wmv... with built-in AC97 and SB16 drivers
* 7ZIP, INFO-ZIP zip & unzip... - modern archivers are available for DOS
* EDIT / SETEDIT - multi window text editors
* HTMLHELP - help viewer, can read help directly from a zip file
* PG - powerful text viewer (similar to V. D. Buerg's LIST)
* many text mode programs ported from Linux thanks to DJGPP
* GRAPHICS - greyscale hardcopy on ESC/P, HP PCL and PostScript printers
* etc.
FreeDOS should run on any standard PC, but if you are new to DOS, we recommend you use a PC emulator to install and boot FreeDOS. You can find PC emulators for all computer platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac.) You can even run FreeDOS using a PC emulator written in Java, right in your web browser!
FreeDOS 1.0
FreeDOS 1.0
