Hi Marshall, Bernd, here my opinion:
Can it run on the internet?
DOS was never meant for that but you can use it for that if you
are an experienced user and know how to install the drivers. The
Arachne web browser itself is easy to use, though.
Is it fast?
It boots very fast because DOS does not have many features. Programs
run fast because in DOS only very few things are happening in the
background. But of course it only runs DOS programs. Disk operations
can be much faster in a 32bit O/S compared to DOS, even if you load
the UDMA driver by Lucho (because an O/S like Windows or Linux can
dynamically allocate large amounts of disk buffers / cache memory and
uses complex algorithms to use those buffers in optimized way).
But DOS should FEEL fast and respond directly to most commands.
Will it find my hardware?
FreeDOS will boot from your harddisk unless your BIOS is broken.
It will find the graphics card and screen, simply because it uses
available in all models screen resolutions. You can manually select
other resolutions or refresh rates but this will in SOME cases mean
that you have to install drivers for that manually. FreeDOS will also
find your diskette drive unless you have an USB drive with bad BIOS
support. Things like USB disks / memory sticks / diskette drives /
CD-ROM drives might work only if you boot from them. USB mouse and
keyboard should be supported when the BIOS supports legacy support
for them. FreeDOS does NOT contain ANY USB DRIVERS itself and you
will have a hard time to find DOS drivers for any USB device unless
there is BIOS support for that device.
External and internal modems which connect to / like serial ports are
fine, but USB modems or internal Winmodems will NOT work.
Network will only work if you know how to install the drivers (form
many standard network cards DOS drivers should exist, though) and
if your internet provider does not insist on using some new protocols
which DOS does not support yet. And it will NOT be easy to install.
Standard internal CD-ROM drives should work, but you should know how
to configure them properly and which drivers should be used. I do NOT
recommend to use ATAPICDD. It is only for the case that no other driver
can be found and is e.g. very slow. But it is quite one size fits all.
Sound will work if and only if it is SoundBlaster compatible or ships
with DOS drivers, generally speaking. Sound drivers are not part of the
O/S in DOS, but rather part of those programs which use sound directly.
Only very few programs support e.g. AC97 compatible sound even if it is
not SoundBlaster compatible.
If that sounds scary for you, then FreeDOS is not good for you. Try
PC DOS or some other DOS which supports at least SOME of the hardware
which FreeDOS does not support. Or try a real 32bit O/S, of course.
On the other hand, if you only want to play your old DOS games and either
have a SoundBlaster compatible sound card or are even happy with the
internal speaker of your PC for sound, FreeDOS will work just fine for
you. All relevant devices (harddisk, graphics card, mouse, keyboard,
diskette, screen...) have good compatibility modes which are used e.g.
by the BIOS. As you will have noticed, you can use all those devices even
in BIOS SETUP without ever having to install drivers for them. The other
game-relevant devices like sound or joystick will work if SoundBlaster
compatible or shipped with DOS drivers.
MenuetOS is certainly not the only O/S which fits on a single floppy.
You can use FreeDOS ODIN, Linux (e.g. TomsRBT), QNX (an OS optimized
for timing-critical things, with networking support), ... but you must
know that you will not get any fancy user interface / GUI with those
tiny one-floppy installs.
I have a extra hard drive, I was thinking about putting your O/S on it.
is it secure?
No, FreeDOS is certainly not secure. It does not protect you from crashes
or viruses in any way. This is basically true for any DOS. But today, most
viruses will only get you if you connect to the internet anyway.
FreeDOS might have problems to boot from the extra drive, unless you use
a boot manager / menu which can handle this situation. It will read the
configuration from C:, no matter on which drive letter you install FreeDOS.
However, FreeDOS does not mess a lot with other operating systems, so you
should not experience great problems. If you have another FAT based O/S on
the same computer, make sure that you understand how to install and configure
FreeDOS BEFORE trying to install it on harddisk.
Otherwise you might end up REPLACING your other O/S with FreeDOS.
Using FreeDOS from floppy without installing it on harddisk is of course
much safer.
Conclusion: FreeDOS is certainly NOT simple and NOT an alternative for
the typical Windows XP user for anything. If you want an easy to use O/S,
use Linux or Windows, and select a version of it which suits your taste
and is easy to install. On the other hand, FreeDOS is a quite GOOD version
of DOS for
