Excerpt from Rugxulo: > DOS on modern IBM PC clones have too many hardware compatibility > issues: power management, lack of networking (almost no packet > drivers), no soundcard drivers (or even static libs), almost no USB > support. It doesn't look like most hardware companies care enough to > waste time on it. Heck, half the time they don't seem to even properly > support Linux. And DJGPP isn't exactly brimming with enthusiastic new > users or tons of ports from Linux maintainers either.
> So expecting anything beyond what we've already got is probably naive > (sadly). They probably (rightly? hope not!) think that DOS will really > disappear once the BIOS is totally replaced by UEFI in all new OEM > shipments. I know some people think some partial BIOS compatibility > will be available, but I'm very skeptical. > In other words, it's complicated! Now I have modern computer hardware, and can't even successfully install FreeDOS. I once succeeded on a 4 GB USB stick, Ativa, twist-turn style, but that went bad, actually came apart physically. This installation could read the header/title of a CD but no more in a SATA DVD-RW drive. I also had a FreeDOS installation on a 341 MB IDE hard drive but can no longer read that hard drive, now using Sabrent USB 2.0 enclosure. I am able to read two other old IDE hard drives in that enclosure. But there is hope, considering that the FreeDOS image on System Rescue CD boots and runs, at least if I use no memory manager. FreeDOS can read and write to USB drive with FAT16 or FAT32 file system thanks to BIOS/UEFI support, but only as a fixed disk: only when in port at boot time, and no good when changing USB sticks. FreeDOS can't read my hard drive because of lack of support for GPT. I can't access Ethernet or wi-fi through FreeDOS at all, at least not yet. I haven't downloaded Glenn McCorkle's March 2013 update of Arachne for DOS. Even if I could make the network work in FreeDOS, lack of support for Javascript or HTTPS makes Arachne useful just as a curiosity; so many more functional browsers available for Linux and BSD. I wonder about the possibility of making hardware work in FreeDOS through UEFI initializing the devices, or Ethernet through PXE boot. I believe DJGPP is pretty much lame-duck now. I'd guess that, even with UEFI replacing legacy BIOS, bootable USB sticks with MBR partitioning will still be bootable, subject to the underlyimg OS being otherwise compatible with the hardware. Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
