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Since this install is based on QEMU running in Linux, it would not meet that need.
The end user need not know it is QEMU atop Linux. They see and use DOS.
I'm surprised no one has guessed power and thermal management as a reason for running DOS on top of QEMU/Linux. I have no idea. If the laptop is running FreeDOS on "bare metal", what happens when you close the lid and put it in your backpack?
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The SIM card in your mobile telephone is doing that right now. You are correct - it is basically used as a back door.
Usually when I hear people talk about backdooring it's usually on the network stack. On a phone that would be a modem. Most devices, even in your computer (eg: laptop battery) run an OS. There's a good talk somewhere on how we've lost our way with OS design and now need to write an OS that looks at a single machine as a distributed system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo
USENIX ATC '21/OSDI '21 Joint Keynote Address-It's Time for Operating Systems to Rediscover Hardware
Edit or this one (not a talk but a paper)?
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/osdi18-shan.pdf
LegoOS: A Disseminated, Distributed OS for Hardware Resource Disaggregation ... We propose a new OS model called the splitkernel to manage disaggregated systems. Splitkernel disseminates traditional OS functionalities into loosely-coupled mon- itors, each of which runs on and manages a hardware component
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You might get this all the time, but I saw your username and thought no way that's the old palm guy. But I clicked on your profile, and you are the old palm guy! I used your apps back when I had a Tungsten T5, and Treo 680. :)
http://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=27.%20rePalm :)
> It as possible, but not documented.
Should probably be:
> It [is|was] possible, but not documented.
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which leaves the question of why going through the hassle of creating this mess instead of just Linux.
According to the article, they already do have a Linux option. I’d wager the FreeDOS is a legacy option because they’ve supported it in the past an figures have shown it sells. Even if those figures don’t take into account how many of those legacy FreeDOS installs were for other alternative OS like Linux (though it could also be BSD, Haiku, Illumos, ReactOS or others). Or there genuinely might still be FreeDOS users…
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Some countries also prohibit selling laptops without any OSs because they're unusable in that way, so this is a way to sell a technically "fully usable laptop" for people who'll install linux anyway.
which leaves the question of why going through the hassle of creating this mess instead of just Linux.
My (relatively new) HP Spectre x360 only got sound working until Ubuntu 22.04 was launched. This is one year after the hardware was launched. I spent some months using Ubuntu without having sound, unless I plugged my USB headphones.
My previous laptop, Dell Inspiron 7375 with an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U CPU, did not even properly boot into Linux until Ubuntu 22.04 was launched. The best I could manage was make it boot it with some MMU kernel parameter, and it worked for half an hour until it froze. And it always froze with Ubuntu 18.04. It is a computer from 2018, so it was four years without me being able to natively run Linux in it. I had to use a virtual machine during these years =(
So, there's a lot of work either by the community or by the vendor to make Linux work in some hardware.
I’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).
Dell has the Ubuntu option for many computers, but for those who do not want to use Ubuntu, like myself, there is no difference between the Dell Ubuntu option and the HP FreeDOS option, because such customers will always install their own preferred OS, immediately after the purchase of a new computer.
I'm surprised no one has guessed power and thermal management as a reason for running DOS on top of QEMU/Linux. I have no idea. If the laptop is running FreeDOS on "bare metal", what happens when you close the lid and put it in your backpack?
> If the laptop is running FreeDOS on "bare metal", what
> happens when you close the lid and put it in your backpack?
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952
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Weird old legacy hardware that only runs on DOS generally requires real-time access to stuff like ISA cards or parallel/serial ports, so this wouldn't work for that use case since the computer doesn't have any of those.
I have a weird old nylon cutting machine connected to a DOS machine over a serial port. It would not work with a USB/RS-232 adaptor?
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which leaves the question of why going through the hassle of creating this mess instead of just Linux.
I dual-boot in my computers, because for some things live video games (and some software) I prefer Windows, while for coding or using a remote console I prefer Ubuntu. So I always try to split the hard disk in half and install Ubuntu in raw hardware. My (relatively new) HP Spectre x360 only got sound working until Ubuntu 22.04 was launched. This is one year after the hardware was launched. I spent some months using U…