Hey Dex4u, please stop! Better than polluting the DOS part of the forum with childish propaganda for your "mature" OS, why don't you beg the forum master to include another General category: DexOS, in which you can ask yourself questions about your wonderful OS. Who knows? Perhaps you'll fool some people to play with your toy. And don't forget that you are a beginner and you have still enough to learn before being able to teach lessons.

and i'm thinking about something... dos is really dead, and not only msdos

now, the time is to 3D desktops, where command line and dos compatibility are really useless.

making a graphic basis for os is better than to copy M$ and it's boring dos based windows.

linux console too is dead. there are so many commands, a syntax so boring, that it's useless.

Hmm... Complex GUI is like a toy for home/office OS. It really slows down other processes (like in vista). Real, applied problems (modelling, data processing, etc) require fast speed and high reliability, which is incompatible with GUI..

Guys, it is enough, keep discussing ON TOPIC and forget the DexOS vs FreeDOS discussion.

PS: And on topic means that, not just not talking about deficiencies of DexOS and FreeDOS

what are minimum requirements to make compatibility between all DOS based OSes?
please, can you all find an arrangement?
a common basis that permitts to execute all DOS files on all DOS based OSes.
if you do not, all your fantastic pseudoDOS are not based on DOS at all, they are only bad copy of DOS.
i say it for you, all in all i don't care about DOS based OS as the best DOS based OS is M$ DO$, and it works.

and one precision, gui based os are not only toys.
it makes computing more interresting, easier to understand and use.
when i code on fasmD (good program), i'm very bored by the lack of resolution of the screen.
when using dos command line, the scrolling text view is very trash for brain, linux console, ... it's worse...
so.. gui is the better interface for human. we are not machines.
and gui have a greater resolution.. more text can be displayed on a 1024*768 screen than in a linux console with high resolution text mode.
if gui exists it's not for the pigs or the end users...
the presence of text mode is simple, in early times of computers, machines was very limited, and then text mode was the only solution to display text relativelly fast.
since µP run at more than 100 MHz, it's useless.

DOS has three main meanings:
1. Disk operating system: in its most general sense, any operating system that provides high-level (file-level) access to the disk is a DOS. This is pretty much every operating system today.

2. MS-DOS, DR-DOS, PC-DOS, FreeDOS, etc. as a family of operating systems for IBM comaptible PC's. Based on int 21h, etc. The most common usage.

3. Systems inspired by #2, like DexOS, etc. They are for PC-compatible systems, but have a totally different API.



Text mode pros: easy to display text; allows for blinking and color; great for cmd interface; no need to bother with fonts, etc.; good for debugging (if you have to display a critical kernel error, that's easier to indicate in text mode); has very high quality text in standard VGA modes

cons: no graphics; no fonts, special colors, etc.; no having multiple programs running in windows at once and no taskbar

DOS is by default text-mode, if your app needs graphics, it needs to do that on its own.

DOS allows direct hardware access by applications. That is both a good and a bad thing in an OS: its good because you can mess around with your hardware and have lots of fun, make your programs really fast, have them take total control of your PC, learn more about the internals of the hardware, etc. With Windows NT, etc., you have increased system stability and security at the expense of direct hardware access. Which of these is more important depends on your application. Not all people need security, and not all people want to play around with the hardware.

@edfed



Uhhh, linux uses a 1024x768 32bpp framebuffer by default to display it's console, unless the video card doesn't support it.


Uhh... no. The console exists for user speed as well. In a system with no even semi-console (the Run box in Windows counts), try to go to a file at, "C:\Docs\stuff\images\video_games\A\touhou.png" from C:. In a GUI, you have to look for Docs on the C: drive, with a bunch of other files, when you find it, repeat for the other folders.
In a console, just type in "cd c:\docs\stuff\images\videogames\A\" and then "(image viewer of choice) touhou.png". Not much looking needed. Stuff can be done quickly and by memory. And, GUIs are inherently more complex, and thus less stable.
[/end long rant]

FreeDOS certainly isn't dead, the latest kernel is the Sep. 15, 2007 "2038pre" version, and work towards an official FD 1.1 release is ongoing (Jim, Blair, Eric, Fritz, Geraldo, at least). They've already sorta decided on the dir structure, much has been updated since the official 1.0 (almost 1 1/2 years ago) [see here for details], and even FreeCOM itself (default shell) will soon be updated (according to Blair).

If you want an improved DOS, you're probably wishing for something like ReactOS (just recently updated to 0.3.4 but probably still buggy "alpha", so don't get your hopes too too high, needs at least 64 MB to run).

Or you could try FreeDOS-32 (which does natively run in pmode, runs DJGPP apps by default, can run the Win32 build of FTE via emulation, starts up from standard real-mode DOS, but it's basically half-finished at best, discontinued, and hasn't been updated recently, check the mailing list archives for links to unfinished 0.0.6).

And yes, DexOS is darn good (although I do still wish there was a proper FASM subforum here for it, just for better organizing topics related to it). And there are other good assembly OSes too (although less DOS-like because they use GUIs: OctaOS, MenuetOS, SolarOS, etc.) that all also run FASM.

And, to be fully honest, Japheth has done tons for DOS in general (JEMMEX, DEBUGX, HX, etc.), especially the latter which does lots of good stuff (Win32 emulation, DPMI servers, threads, DLLs).

DOS isn't dead until everyone (including hardware people) abandons it and all that runs under it. Luckily, that hasn't happened! You don't have to use or like it, but be glad that it exists. More options can't hurt.

but default font is the same as the poor bios one.

CLI vs GUI
the wouineur is... ?

You forgot TUI.

But seriously, you can use both at the same time. At least, I always leave a DOS window open under Windows (kinda reminds me of ex mode in vi). Best of both worlds.

TUI ~ GUI
is it possible to make a file format that support PM and is as easy to RM .com model programming?

a program launcher that allocate a predefined amount of memory in a ldt
a ldt that contain only the needed descriptors for the program, a screen buffer, some extrabuffers, and the code/data segment?

the only header needed is :

org ???

You could always try NASM's RDOFF (only old v1, I think, e.g. NASM 0.97) with WDOSX, it's pretty easy. See the WDOSX docs for a simple "Hello, world!" example (and extended DOS API).

I know its not really, but i was mad at DOS386 for saying thats its a bug in DexOS, for not working right when run from FreeDos, when it work fine from MS-Dos.
As freedos is a clone of MsDos, its a bug in freedos.

> but i was mad at DOS386 for

The only person you should be mad at is yourself because of your rudeness and previous "explosion" at a false positive

> saying thats its a bug in DexOS, for not working right when run from FreeDos, when it work fine from MS-Dos.

It is/was (mostly) your design fault MS-DOG, the world's most useful and most free OS

For the record, just because MS was first doesn't mean they invented everything DOS-related: they didn't. And MS-DOS has various bugs that others don't (and vice versa). FreeDOS even implements many things that MS-DOS never bothered (due to Windows being a bigger priority for them, I suppose).

But anyways, can't we all just get along?

I just do not get on with braindead people, but i will just ignore him.

hey!
martyrdom
you're new, did you log only to say this?
are you an already registered user that don't assume to say that, so you create a new log?
sooo, shut up
dex has made a lot of helpfull code...

show us your real identity, are you ?????