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.

Thoughts on updating the install process

Jerome Shidel has been working on a set of power utilities for DOS batch files. Called the V8Power Tools for DOS, they provide "Visual" equivalents to many command line tools, such as VCLS, VCHOICE, VECHO .. as well as new power tools such as VPROGRES (display a progress bar) and VFRAME (for text-mode boxes).

I would love to see an update to the FreeDOS install process that uses Jerome's V8Power Tools. It may help to know that we've previously discussed (on the mailing list, and individually with a few developers) that the next FreeDOS distribution should assume some defaults. For example, rather than ask "minimal install," "normal install," "complete install," and "custom install," simply assume a "default" installation. The only option that needs to be asked is if the user wants to install source code, too.

This simplifies the install process quite a lot. And it means that everyone starts with a standard configuration, which makes debugging easier (rather than having to ask "did you do a complete install or only the minimal install?" when helping someone with a question or problem). FreeDOS isn't very large, so limiting the install options is unlikely to be an issue for many people these days.

Applying Jerome's V8Power Tools, the INSTALL.BAT would be quite simple. Here's an example that I'm just making up (I haven't tested this):

@ECHO OFF

VCHOICE "Hi there. You are about to install FreeDOS onto your computer. If this is not what you intend to do, please exit now." "Continue" "Exit"
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO QUIT

VCHOICE "Do you want to install source code, too?" "Yes" "No"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO INSTALL

SET EXCLUDE="-x SOURCE"

:INSTALL
VECHO "Installing FreeDOS … Please wait"

UNZIP -qq A:\INSTALL\PKGS\BASE\*.ZIP %EXCLUDE% -d C:\FDOS
UNZIP -qq A:\INSTALL\PKGS\DEVEL\*.ZIP %EXCLUDE% -d C:\FDOS
UNZIP -qq A:\INSTALL\PKGS\EDIT\*.ZIP %EXCLUDE% -d C:\FDOS
REM … and so on for other package sets

VCHOICE "FreeDOS has been installed! You can reboot the computer now, or you can just exit back to the system." "Reboot" "Exit"
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO DONE

VECHO "Rebooting …"
REBOOT

:QUIT
VECHO "You have aborted the installation."
GOTO END

:DONE
VCLS
ECHO "Ok"

:END

That batch script is over-simplified (it doesn't check if the C: drive is ready, doesn't run post-install scripts, etc.) but I think it's enough that you can see the idea I had.

Farewell to CarbonOS

I meant to share a note about this earlier, but then SourceForge went down and my attention was drawn to other things. I just wanted to share Corbin's note that Carbon OS is discontinued. Carbon OS was a distribution of FreeDOS for non-DOS users. I mentioned it on twitter in 2014.

Visual batch tools (simplifying the install process)

I don't think of these tools as the "FreeDOS Install program" per-se. Rather, they are a set of useful batch tools that others might use for other things. It also makes a very nice FreeDOS Install program.

I imagine that the "V" tools will all share a common command line syntax. So options to define the background color, text color, window color, window background, screen title, and window title. Environment variables would also be a nice option.

So with the right options to define background color=blue, title background color=cyan, title text color=black, window background color=red, window text color=white, … title="FreeDOS 1.2", window title="Hi there!" … you might have this:

VECHO "This is a simple message box"

FreeDOS 1.2

Hi there!

This is a simple message box

I'm just making stuff up as I type, but maybe the options could be defined as environment variables like so:

VBACKGR=BLUE
VTITLEBG=CYAN
VTITLE=BLACK
VWINBG=RED
VWIN=WHITE

Or as command line options:

VECHO /VBACKGR:BLUE /VTITLEBG:CYAN /VTITLE:BLACK … "This is a simple message box"

By providing flexibility for both command line options and environment variables, it will make things very easy for someone who wants to use the "VTOOLS" to make their own "visual" batch script.

With text options:

VECHO /TITLE:"FreeDOS 1.2" /WIN:"Hi there!" "This is a simple message box"