Add more FreeDOS versions #12765
Add more FreeDOS versions #12765
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I'm fine with these addition in general, I just have doubts about adding these "release candidates" at all, given that (as the name implies) they are just buggy versions of the same thing. This obviously also applies retroactively, like I don't see the point in supporting FreeDOS 1.3RC1-4. |
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They could perhaps be removed, I doubt FreeDOS is at great risk of losing its development history (being open source, it's widely mirrored...). MAME has plenty of other examples of prototype software/games available, on the other hand, and filling in the missing RC just made it more complete to that aspect. |
We must define official guidelines regarding this: #11466 |
While we had every version of FreeDOS from 1.0 through 1.3-RC4, we were missing the last 1.3 RC and its final release. New working software list items (ibm5150.xml, ibm5170.xml, ibm5170_cdrom.xml) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- FreeDOS 1.3 Release Candidate 5 [FreeDOS Project] FreeDOS 1.3 [FreeDOS Project]
These files are inseparatably attached to the CD-ROM releases, as their only purpose is to boot the installer on systems that do not support CD-ROM booting.
This is not an official FreeDOS distribution, but it is a useful one for the ibm5150 driver, stripping down the operating system into something reasonable to run on the original IBM PC architecture. Useful links about what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOVLlMQs9f8 https://archive.org/details/free-dos-1.3-8086-minimized New working software list items (ibm5150.xml) --------------------------------------------- FreeDOS 1.3 8086 Minimized [AkBKukU]
These are just basic installs of the operating system from the installation media.
Let's put this way: these are Operating Systems, and the install phases are one offs. Supporting RCs is the equivalent of supporting non-LTS Linux distros, and we don't have the workforce for that unnecessary level of detail (read: non-negligible install times for testing). |
Official releases: 1.3-RC5 and 1.3 were missing, I've added those in the first commit.
I've also added an unofficial 5150-optimized version from https://archive.org/details/free-dos-1.3-8086-minimized. While I'm wary of including an unofficial release too, it is very useful to making FreeDOS usable on the ibm5150 driver, the regular version being much more optimized for the 486/Pentium era of computers. It also only comes in two 360K floppy disks, instead of a dozen 720K disks. The second commit can easily be omitted if it's not suitable for the MAME software list.