Does anyone here know of any dos based os (similar to Win 9x). I'm looking for a backup OS's when Me becomes unusable.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm - what is it specifically that you need to do on your PC that only a hybrid version of Windows can do?

Does anyone here know of any dos based os (similar to Win 9x). I'm looking for a backup OS's when Me becomes unusable.

FreeDOS. It's quite good already... but that far away in the future it'll sure be quite great!

And, then again, there are things like Porteus linux, which should do fine, as well.

FreeDOS. It's quite good already... but that far away in the future it'll sure be quite great!

And, then again, there are things like Porteus linux, which should do fine, as well.

Thanks. I now have a good dos backup, when the time comes (much in the future still). Glad to see that DOS still lives.

So Flasche, I'm confused. Are you looking for a replacement DOS, or are you looking for a hybrid OS that runs on top of DOS? (like Win9x/Me)?

Your question said DOS-based. FreeDOS only replaces the text-based DOS portion (that's not at all like Win9x/Me)

There was somthing a long time ago called DRLX now it is abandonware but it was a Dos Boot loader that would load the ninux kernel while preserving DOS in the memory. http://drdos.com/products/drlx/

http://lwn.net/Articles/77875/

Edited April 13, 201412 yr by oldskool

There was somthing a long time ago called DRLX now it is abandonware but it was a Dos Boot loader that would load the ninux kernel while preserving DOS in the memory. http://drdos.com/products/drlx/

http://lwn.net/Articles/77875/

Wow that really is something interesting . I'll look into that one too.

Would you consider Novell Netware 4 to be a DOS based OS?

There are a whole bunch of "DOS replacements", some are listed here:

http://reboot.pro/forum/13-freedos-and-dos/

one of the "most promising" is (IMHO) nx-dos:

http://reboot.pro/topic/4755-nx-dos/

which is still in active development:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nxdos/

http://digitalatoll.com:8080/tawhakisoft/nxdos.html

The DR-DOS/NOvell/Caldera/OPENDOS/Devicelogics saga is IMHO way too complex to understand the exact licensing terms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS

though it has it's followers :

http://www.drdos.net/

http://drdosprojects.de/

But nothing "win9x-like" AFAICR/AFAIK.

Some GUI alternatives (for Dos) were talked/discussed/hinted about in these seemingly unrelated threads:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16754

http://reboot.pro/topic/623-minibox-rides-again/

and of course MCshell:

http://reboot.pro/topic/752-mcshell-a-shell-look-a-like-to-mac-and-win31/

What I personally liked the most was the NewDeal/Breadbox Ensemble:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewDeal#NDO

OT , but not that much , what you should really-really have on your 9x/Me setups, however, would IMHO be the Win9x CMD.EXE:

http://reboot.pro/topic/2392-nice-find-cmdexe-for-win9x/

jaclaz

one of the "most promising" is (IMHO) nx-dos:

http://reboot.pro/topic/4755-nx-dos/

which is still in active development:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nxdos/

Wow promising indeed. I have to try that out now. (in a vm of course) You my sir are amazing.

EDIT: Hmm curious to know how well it would work with 32 bit windows. I dont expect much or any at all , but still i'ma try.

Edited April 15, 201412 yr by Flasche

There actually are quite a few DOS-based OSes. Most of the ones I've found are in early alpha stages, though, but they do look impressive.

 

XFDOS (website, video) Basically a port of the SLWM desktop and FLTK toolkit to FreeDOS.

N2K-OS (website, video)

SkyFireOS (website, video)

Aura M4 (website, video) This one is pretty impressive. It has some cool eye candy and looks like it has a good multitasking system.

 

DOS ain't dead!