With FreeDOS being, well, DOS, you’d think there wasn’t much point in putting out major releases and making big changes, and you’d mostly be right. However, being a DOS clone doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement within the confines of the various parts and tools that make up DOS, and that’s exactly where FreeDOS focuses its attention. FreeDOS 1.4 comes about three years after 1.3.
This version includes an updated FreeCOM, Install program, and HTML Help system. This also includes improvements to many of the utilities including FDISK, JEMM, 7Zip, FORMAT, FASM, MORE, RUNTIME, and more!
↫ FreeDOS website
If you’re using FreeDOS, you’re most likely doing so for a highly specialised task, and racing to upgrade isn’t exactly high on your list of priorities. Still, it’s great to see FreeDOS moving forward and improving where it can.
Typo; it comes after version 1.3.
FreeDOS 1.2 was about 9Y ago now.
Sadly version 1.4 does not have the updated kernel yet and so still can’t run Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode.
At this rate it’ll probably be another four or five years for that new kernel to be released in an official version of FreeDOS. I get that DOS is DOS and that generally it doesn’t need updates in the same way that modern OSes do, but I still think FreeDOS should try to do a new version refresh/update once a year or every other year at least.
The way they seem to do it now, they constantly keep it up to date, but they seemingly “forget” to actually put an update out until the current version’s software is so creaky, outdated and inadequate that people are literally complaining about it and begging for a new version. That is *not* a good way to run an OS, especially when the updated software is all already there–they just don’t feel like putting together updated images and making a new official release..
3 years is better than the usual 5 or 6, but there’s no telling when the *next* version will be released at this rate either. Everything about FreeDOS’ release model is IMO screwed up.
Is it really as bad as that? My understanding was that FreeDOS essentially creates a full release every month as a “test” release. Not much changes. FreeDOS 1.4 is using the same kernel that shipped with FreeDOS 1.3!
The parent comment here is that FreeDOS still does not support Windows 386 Enhanced Mode. Reading the release notes, there are really no significant new capabilities in FreeDOS 1.44. The biggest change is removing previously shipped desktops. The problem seems to be too few changes between releases, not too many.
As an outsider, it seems the “releases” (eg 1.3 and 1.4) are the LTS versions with the monthly releases for those that desire updates more frequently. I do not imagine that it is too hard to identify a recent test release that is known to be in good shape. Maybe a better analogy would be Debian testing vs Debian stable.
For a small project with few big changes, the monthly releases seem like a great strategy.
Key words: “test release.”
Sure, if you are comfortable with running releases that were automatically generated on a timed monthly basis for testing purposes, no one is stopping you. You can run them, Hell, Arch users do this all the time, although the final result is technically rolling and meant for normal use instead of testing (although I wouldn’t fully trust it personally). And in fact, considering that FreeDOS is really just a loosely-packed group of applications packaged together similar in a way to Linux but a much simpler system in general and with core parts usually remaining relatively stable from version to version, it may likely even work without any noticeable problems.
In fact, when FreeDOS decides to make a new “official” release, they just take one of these builds, put it through thorough testing, fix bugs, maybe tweak a few things, stamp a version number on it and call it a release. The key thing to remember here is that until FreeDOS decides to pick one of these to make a new release, they are generally untested, so are more “use at your own risk” type builds.
Personally, I prefer my systems to be running an operating system that has at least undergone basic testing to ensure that all of its components work as expected and work well together, so actual release versions of FreeDOS are important to me. Don’t get me wrong though, playing with a new test version can be fun–but it’s not something I would use beyond just playing around.
I think FreeDOS made one very bad mistake – creating FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT.
Just about all DOS software on the planet assumes CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are the files that run at startup.
Creating new “replacement” files was really pointless and a waste of time.
I just read that FreeDOS will actually read both CONFIG.SYS and FDCONFIG.SYS and similar for AUTOEXEC.BAT / FDAUTO.BAT.
There is low amount of RAM available in DOS, every byte counts, and FreeDOS is effectively wasting ram supporting multiple startup files.
It clearly shows FreeDOS made a bad mistake creating FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT.
If FreeDOS 2.0 is ever released, I hope they get rid of FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT.
Jim Hall actually explained quite a valid reason for their choice of naming system files, and it’s simply to coexist on the same disk/partition as another DOS as a sort of dual-boot setup where FreeDOS can coexist without interfering with the other DOS’ configuration. He explained how to set FreeDOS to use the traditional file names and it is actually a pretty quick and simple process, although from version to version that process seems to keep changing a bit.
Honestly though, in 2025 I’m not sure how many people (even among DOS users) “dual-boot” DOSes from one partition, if I would have to guess incredibly few, so I can see the FreeDOS system file naming scheme as being a bit archaic and not really solving the problem it was meant to solve in the first place, but I could be wrong. Even if this is the case, it’s been as it is for so long now, I doubt it ever has any real chance of changing now. It seems set in stone.
Ok it looks like Jim Hall made a bad mistake!
FreeDOS could not possibly “coexist” on the same partition as another DOS.
I believe there is 1 boot sector on a partition; it is impossible for 2 DOSes to “share” the boot sector.
If you want to “dual boot” 2 different DOSes, the correct solution is to have 2 separate partitions. The “active” partition decides which DOS will actually boot.
Soooo disappointing they made that silly mistake.
If there is ever a FreeDOS 2.0, I hope they fix it.
You can set up a multi-system bootloader. FreeDOS’ bootloader, by default, can boot FreeDOS in four or so different modes. Surely it can’t be too difficult to install, say, MS-DOS or PC-DOS to that same “drive C:” and add an entry to the bootloader to boot it instead of FreeDOS if you want. And because by default FreeDOS doesn’t touch the standard AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS, the two systems can, in fact, coexist peacefully on the same drive and partition.
It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but it’s something I’d be surprised if anyone takes advantage of these days. And if you want to change it, if I recall correctly, it simply involves renaming the two files and modifying the setting file so that pointers refer to the new file name.