The FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 distribution was released April 30, 2021 as part of the development cycle towards FreeDOS 1.3
Changes
With the RC4 release, the LiveCD provided a (mostly complete) pre-installed FreeDOS environment so users could boot from the LiveCD and run most FreeDOS programs without installing to the hard drive. This release was larger than the RC3 distribution, so some packages were moved to a Bonus CD. The "x86" version was also available in different floppy image formats. In addition, the Readme file was completed updated.
History
The FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 distribution was available as these files:
- FD13-LiveCD.zip - the FreeDOS LiveCD image
- FD13-BonusCD.zip - extra packages not included in the LiveCD
- FD13-LegacyCD.zip - the legacy CD image for systems that cannot boot the LiveCD
- FD13-Floppy.zip - the boot floppy to use the legacy CD
- FD13-FullUSB.zip - the full installer as a USB fob drive image
- FD13-LiteUSB.zip - the installer as a USB fob drive image
- FD13-FE120m.zip - the "x86" installer as 1.2MB floppy images
- FD13-FE144m.zip - the "x86" installer as 1.44MB floppy images
- FD13-FE720k.zip - the "x86" installer as 720kB floppy images
Release notes
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FreeDOS 1.3 Release Candidate 4 ("FreeDOS 1.3 RC4")
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General system requirements:
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* DOS-compatible system (Intel + BIOS, or UEFI with Legacy support)
* At least 20MB free disk space:
20MB Plain DOS system
45MB Plain DOS system, with sources
250MB Full installation including applications and games
450MB Full installation with sources
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What's in all those zip files?
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FD13-LiveCD.zip
* FD13LIVE.ISO - The FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 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.
FD13-LegacyCD.zip
* FD13LGCY.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.
FD13-Floppy.zip
* FD13FLOP.IMG - Basic FreeDOS installation boot floppy image. If
your computer has a CD-ROM drive, but you cannot boot from the
install CD. Use this diskette image to boot the system. Then
insert the install CD. The FreeDOS installer should do the rest.
FD13-BonusCD.zip
* FD13BNS.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.
FD13-LiteUSB.zip
* FD13LITE.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.
* FD13LITE.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)
FD13-FullUSB.zip
* FD13FULL.IMG - Plain DOS system and Full install USB stick image.
* FD13FULL.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.)
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FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition (FD13-x86)
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FreeDOS 1.3 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 FreeDOS set of programs
that are more useful on classic PC hardware.
The FreeDOS Floppy-Only Edition is distributed as several zip archives
containing the pre-made floppy diskette images:
These zip archives contain image files for several common floppy
diskette media:
* FD13-FE720k.zip - 3.5" 720k diskette images
* FD13-FE144m.zip - 3.5" 1.44mb diskette images
* FD13-FE120m.zip - 5.25" 1.2mb diskette images
Each of those zip archives contain a set 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.
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Support note regarding the Floppy-Only Edition
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As of FreeDOS 1.3 RC4, 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.