The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
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The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
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Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#2It's like a Linux, qemu, DOS turducken
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#3Wow.
But it's also quite surprising considering HP (and HPE which I understand is not very related) usually provides FreeDOS based firmware update and configurarion ISOs on their product download pages.
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#4Very interesting. I’m assuming there is no persistence in the referenced live squashfs ?
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#5I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#6That was far more amusing and interesting than I thought it would be...
I wonder if it can actually boot DOS on the physical hardware, and if it can't ( DOS itself is very minimal in what it requires of the hardware), is it really PC-compatible anymore?
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#7I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?
Maybe it is for customers running weird old legacy hardware (e.g., lab devices, manufacturing, that only runs on DOS).
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#8I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?
I suspect it's more bland than that, they need to be able to have a booting/working system otherwise the customer is going to call up support and say their computer isn't booting or that it's saying "no OS found" type messages. It's just to cover themselves, that's why they include enough Linux to be able to load a PDF reader. It should be easy enough to do d:\setup.exe with a USB that has a Windows installer on it, with this setup.
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#9That was far more amusing and interesting than I thought it would be... I wonder if it can actually boot DOS on the physical hardware, and if it can't ( DOS itself is very minimal in what it requires of the hardware), is it really PC-compatible anymore?
Intel phased out the UEFI CSM from new platforms in 2020-2021.
Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option
#10I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?
Maybe it is for customers running weird old legacy hardware (e.g., lab devices, manufacturing, that only runs on DOS).
Would those apps work inside QEMU though? Is it configured to properly pass through the parallel port?