SvarDOS – an open-source DOS distribution
68 points by d_silin 18 hours ago | 12 comments

yjftsjthsd-h 17 hours ago
So apparently this isn't "just" a FreeDOS distro? That's interesting; I sorta didn't realize there were multiple living DOS implementations.

> SvarDOS uses a fork of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel, whose development is kept on the EDR github repository.

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ndiddy 8 hours ago
DR DOS was Digital Research's MS-DOS clone. For a while it had more features and ran better than MS-DOS. In the mid-90s, Caldera bought the rights to DR DOS so they could bundle it with their OpenLinux Linux distribution. They briefly released its source code (renamed to "OpenDOS"), but not as an open source license. The license only allowed free use for educational and evaluation purposes. You were required to buy a license from Caldera after 90 days for commercial entities or after a "reasonable period" for non-commercial entities. They then closed the source code again after a few months. The Enhanced DR-DOS project is based off this code release. They seem to have replaced the license in the repo with an email log that releases the code to CP/M as open source, but doesn't mention DR DOS at all. This is a bit sketchy but DR DOS has no commercial value so I doubt anyone will mind.

The biggest impact Caldera's purchase of DR DOS had was that they were able to sue Microsoft for not making Windows 95 compatible with other DOS's besides Microsoft's. Caldera were able to demonstrate Windows 95 booting on DR-DOS with the assistance of a small TSR, which helped the lawsuit (see https://msfn.org/board/topic/109018-windows-98-in-dr-dos/ ). This functionality was never released publicly. Microsoft ended up settling out of court and paying Caldera $280 million.

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stuaxo 15 hours ago
The idea is to make it more compatible with DOS 6.x

So I believe things like Long filenames are not emphasised.

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kristopolous 17 hours ago
btw, if you want to keep up with the freedos community (unfortunately) the facebook group is the best place to do it https://www.facebook.com/groups/freedosproject/
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snvzz 15 hours ago
I refuse to create a facebook account. There are alternatives[0].

0. http://www.svardos.org/?p=forum

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rnd0 5 hours ago
Great for svardos users, not ideal for the rest of the FreeDOS community, however.

[edit]Additionally, it looks like people's IP address is included with their posts. YUCK!

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lastdong 16 hours ago
Is this link really http? Safari on latest iOS refuses to open it.

(All modern browsers will do the same although on desktop you could bypass security restrictions.)

On the upside not being able to open the link led me to find out 86box emulator.

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wobfan 14 hours ago
That's interesting, Firefox and Safari on iOS 18 do open it - didn't know that they changed the default behaviour in 26 apparently.

But yes it's HTTP-only, I think it's by choice.

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M95D 14 hours ago
> I think it's by choice.

To work with Arachne?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne_(web_browser)

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nottorp 14 hours ago
Old school :)

Maybe the comments form in the forum could use https. Nothing else that I can see really needs it.

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lastdong 14 hours ago
It’s working now, must have been something to do with ISP/Firewall/?. Thanks
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thesnide 13 hours ago
bladeenc... now that brings some memories!

svardos comes with a nice package assortment indeed

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