A lot has happened in DOS since FreeDOS 1.3. Developers have been adding features to FreeDOS, fixing bugs, making translations, updating programs, and writing documentation. Many thanks to all the cool developers, testers, contributors, testers, documentation writers, translators .. and everyone else who made FreeDOS 1.4 happen!

The new version has several cool changes, including:

Package updates

As you might expect, many programs in the FreeDOS distribution saw updates. Some of the more recent changes include:

• FreeCOM is the FreeDOS command.com shell. Version 0.86 has a bunch of new fixes, compatibility improvements, and translations, thanks to Jeremy, TK Chia, Emir, Andrew, Yu-Shih, Bernd, Jiří, and others.
• Xcopy is a standard DOS command that copies a directory tree. Version 1.8b has a reworked recursive copy to not use as much stack space, and uses increased stack size when built on Open Watcom. [Jeremy]
• Move moves a file or directory from one place to another. Version 3.4 has an update to limit stack usage reducing the chance of stack overflow on recursive moves. [Jeremy]
• Fdisk is the program to manage fixed disks (hard disks). Version 1.4.3 collects several important changes since FreeDOS 1.3, including fixing critical errors that could cause data issues when working with many partitions. [Bernd]
• mTCP is a set of TCP/IP applications for personal computers running DOS. The version in FreeDOS 1.4 has many changes that improve reliability. [Michael]
• FDHelp is the content of the main Help system. Version 1.1.0 has been rewritten from scratch by Willi, and includes translations to other languages thanks to several translators.

A few updates didn't make it into the FreeDOS 1.4 distribution. For example, a few programs released updates in the days before the final FreeDOS 1.4 release, like the Blocek text editor (version 1.76) and that was too late to include them. These programs will get included in upcoming monthly test releases.

Also, the FreeDOS kernel is still the same version from FreeDOS 1.3 because the new kernel is not ready yet. Understandably, an operating system kernel is a critical component and will require a lot of testing before we can include it in the next FreeDOS distribution. When the new kernel is available, we'll roll this into the monthly test releases. For now, FreeDOS 1.4 can't run Windows for Workgroups in enhanced mode, but can run Windows 3.1 in standard mode.

Streamlined packages

We did some package cleanup along the way. For example, FreeDOS has long focused on a command line experience that is typical of classic DOS. However, we've included some graphical desktops in previous distributions, including OpenGEM, Seal, and oZone. However, Seal and oZone were quite buggy; we decided to drop these from the new distribution.

However, you can still find OpenGEM, based on the classic GEM desktop from the DOS era. OpenGEM assumes that it runs from the "root" directory. Until someone volunteers to fix this, we've added a "helper" when you run OpenGEM that provides the SWSUBST command that can emulate the "root" drive for you.

We also replaced the BMP2PNG program with another program, DOSVIEW. As you might guess by the name, DOSVIEW is an image viewer, and it supports a lot of image formats. It also can convert between image formats, including BMP and PNG. (DOSVIEW also supports PCX, TGA, JPG, TIF, GIF, PNM, PBM, PGM, PPM, PSD, and PIC formats, among others.) That's a great example of adding features by including a program that does more for you.

Rearranged packages

This version was much smoother because Jerome Shidel, our distribution manager, had an idea after FreeDOS 1.3 that we could have a rolling test release that collected all of the changes that people make over time. Previous to this, each new FreeDOS distribution (like 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3) required bundling up packages into a "release candidate," and we would go through several iterations of updating the release candidates.

Jerome's method of building the FreeDOS distribution made it easier to automate a test release, which we decided to update every month. As the test releases accumulated enough changes to warrant a release, we could then make the next test release a "release candidate" which would iterate to the next version of the FreeDOS distribution. Since 2022, we've released monthly test releases. Thanks Jerome!

One major change that this process allowed us to test in the open was to rearrange how packages were distributed in the installation media. Take the CD media as an example. In FreeDOS 1.3, we included some packages (like the Open Watcom C compiler) on both the Live CD and the Bonus CD. This was confusing because it wasn't always clear that more development tools were available on the Bonus CD.

By balancing the packages so that packages are only provided on one CD makes things more organized while reducing the CD size. For example, the FreeDOS 1.3 Live CD was about 400 MB (419,573,760) and the FreeDOS 1.3 Bonus CD was about 633 MB (664,485,888). Rearranging the packages means the FreeDOS 1.4 Live CD is only 301 MB (316,557,312) and the FreeDOS 1.4 Bonus CD is just 392 MB (411,643,904).

Get started with FreeDOS 1.4

Visit FreeDOS 1.4 | Download to download the new FreeDOS 1.4 distribution!

Most users should use the Live CD image to install FreeDOS, especially if you're using a virtual machine. We also have a USB installer for real hardware, a Legacy CD installer for older hardware, and a floppy edition for classic hardware.

The Live CD installs a complete user-based DOS system including standard DOS programs, Applications, Archivers, Device Drivers, Games, Networking, Sound, and basic tools. Use the Bonus CD to install Development, Editors, Boot Tools, OpenGEM, and extra utilities.