############################################################################### FreeDOS 2412-Test ("FreeDOS T2412") ############################################################################### Warning: This is a FreeDOS development build and is for testing purposes. It may exhibit behavior vary different from a release build and may not be suitable for regular use. For general use, please consider using the latest release build available at http://freedos.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- General system requirements: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * DOS-compatible system (Intel + BIOS, or UEFI with Legacy support) * At least 20MB free disk space: 20MB Plain DOS system 30MB Plain DOS system, with sources 275MB Full installation including applications and games 450MB Full installation with sources ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's in all those zip files? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T2412-LiveCD.zip * T2412BOOT.IMG - Basic FreeDOS installation boot floppy image. If your computer has a CD-ROM drive, but you cannot boot from the Live CD or Legacy CD. Use this diskette image to boot the system. Then insert the install CD. The FreeDOS installer should do the rest. This diskette image is for installation purposes only and does not provide a Live Environment. * T2412LIVE.ISO - The FreeDOS T2412 installer. Most users should use this image to install FreeDOS. Depending on your computer system and hardware configuration, you can also use the LiveCD to boot and run FreeDOS directly from the CD-ROM without installation to your hard drive. T2412-LegacyCD.zip * T2412BOOT.IMG - This zip archive also contains a copy of the basic CD-ROM installation boot floppy. * T2412LGCY.ISO - A bootable CD image designed for older hardware. If you cannot boot the LiveCD to install FreeDOS, try this disc image. This disc image uses the older El Torito boot CD format. Some newer computers and virtual machines cannot use this older format. Unless you have a computer that requires this type of bootable CD, we recommend using the LiveCD instead. T2412-BonusCD.zip * T2412BNS.ISO - A non-bootable CD image that contains some FreeDOS packages that are not installed as part of either the LiveCD or the Legacy CD. T2412-LiteUSB.zip * T2412LITE.IMG - A minimal FreeDOS installer, as a USB fob drive image. This does not contain all of the packages from either the LiveCD or the LegacyCD, and instead only contains a basic set of FreeDOS packages. * T2412LITE.VMDK - A virtual machine disk file, compatible with a variety of virtual machine software including VirtualBox, VMware, and other systems. Using a VMDK file can simplify installing FreeDOS. Just attach the VMDK image to your virtual machine software as a hard drive, and boot it. (Please note that you will still need to create a virtual hard disk to install FreeDOS) T2412-FullUSB.zip * T2412FULL.IMG - Plain DOS system and Full install USB stick image. * T2412FULL.VMDK - A virtual machine disk file, compatible with a variety of virtual machine software. Just attach the VMDK image to your virtual machine as a hard drive, and boot it. VERIFY.TXT * Contains MD5, SHA256 and SHA512 hashes for all of the different release files. You can verify your copy of FreeDOS with these. README.TXT * The "before you choose and install" document. (All of the zip files listed above also have a copy of the README file.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition (T2412-x86) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FreeDOS T2412 includes a Floppy-Only Edition! This edition should run on any hardware that can run FreeDOS and has EGA or better graphics: * Are you running a '286 or another classic system without a CD-ROM drive? Install from these floppies to install FreeDOS. * Do you have just one hard drive and no CD or floppy drive? Just copy the contents of the floppies to a temporary directory and run the installer from there. * Want to perform a "headless" install to a different DOS directory? It's easy with the command line options. The Floppy-Only Edition uses a completely different installer than the CD-ROM or USB installers. The Floppy-Only Edition does not use any of those other media to install. The Floppy-Only Edition contains a limited set of FreeDOS programs that are more useful on classic PC hardware. The FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition is distributed as single zip archive that contains several pre-made floppy diskette images: These zip archives contain image files for several common floppy diskette media under separate directories: * 720k - 3.5" 720k diskette images * 144m - 3.5" 1.44mb diskette images * 120m - 5.25" 1.2mb diskette images Each of those sets contain a number of pre-made disk images: * x86BOOT.img - A floppy boot disk image with the x86 installer. * x86DSK??.img - Several floppy diskette images that contain the core FreeDOS operating system files. The number of floppy images and amount of files on each varies depending on the diskette capacity. To conserve space, the FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition does not contain the source code for the FreeDOS packages. You can find the source code via the FreeDOS website (https://www.freedos.org/download/) or from the other release media, like the USB or CD-ROM installer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support note regarding the Floppy-Only Edition ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As of FreeDOS T2412, the CPU level detection algorithms in V8Power Tools for DOS (used in the installer) need to be improved. Some systems may be incorrectly reported to the installer as only having an 80186 CPU. When in fact they might have a '286 or better processor. This will affect the software installed by the FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition. For this release, the installer will assume that the hardware has a '386 CPU or better. When launching the SETUP.BAT installer, you can override CPU detection by adding an option (like 8086, 186, 286, 386, 486, 586, 686, EMU, QEMU, VBX, VMW or DBX) to force a specific CPU level to support.