Play classic games
Play DOS games on FreeDOS! We include lots of fun games in the distribution. Or play your favorite classic games, like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Commander Keen, Jill of the Jungle, Duke Nukem, and many others!
Welcome to FreeDOS
FreeDOS is an open source DOS-compatible operating system that you can use to play classic DOS games, run legacy business software, or write new DOS programs. Any program that works on MS-DOS should also run on FreeDOS.
Run applications
Run your favorite DOS programs with FreeDOS. Just install your DOS application under FreeDOS like you would any other DOS application and you'll be good to go.
For developers
We include lots of open source compilers, assemblers, debuggers, and editors so you can create your own DOS programs. We also share our source code under an open source license, so you can modify FreeDOS itself.
What’s New
VSBHDA v1.9
If you want to play DOS games on modern hardware, another option to emulate SoundBlaster is VSBHDA, the Virtual Sound Blaster for HDA sound cards. Thanks to Japheth for releasing an updated VSBHDA with several fixes, including: fixed regression in v1.8: sound may have been distorted in Open Cubic Player, and contains preliminary hdpmi v3.24. Download the latest release from VSBHDA on GitHub or more directly from version 1.9.
SBEMU updates
Classic DOS games talk directly to sound hardware, such as a SoundBlaster. Modern systems don't have SoundBlaster cards, but you can use SBEMU to emulate one on DOS, so your DOS games will work on new hardware. DOS developer Crazii is doing some new work in VDPMI with dynamic switching of PVI that helps against some stuttering. VDPMI and SBEMU both have several fixes. Check out the latest updated via the Vogons message board for more news.
BASCOMP: BASIC compiler for DOS
Mathias Eberle wrote: "I created a single-pass self-compiling BASIC compiler for DOS, targetting 8086/8088 and size optimized COM files as output. The compiler itself generates NASM-compatible code. But since NASM usually generates 386+ code, I have also included a special assembler written in BASIC, so that the toolchain is complete. The language is pretty compatible (subset) to GWBASIC and QBasic/QuickBASIC." You can find it at BASCOMP on GitHub. Note that "development was assisted by a coding AI" so we are unlikely to include this in FreeDOS. Mathias has shared BASCOMP under the CC0 "public domain" license.
NetHack 5.0.0 (includes DOS version)
NetHack 5.0 is an enhancement to the dungeon exploration game NetHack, which itself is a distant descendent of Rogue and Hack. NetHack 5.0 was released a few weeks ago, and includes some general architectural improvements to the game and to its build process. You can read the announcement or download the new version via the NetHack website. Most importantly, the binary releases include a DOS version.
FDNPKG16 v0.99.8254
FDNPKG16 is a 16-bit network-enabled package manager for FreeDOS. Victoria Crenshaw (sparky4) has announced a new version v0.99.8254 with several new fixes and updates: A new download feature means you can download files into the current working directory. And you can now press y or n for the force package install choice. This version also fixed the no packet driver issue, it will quit if there is no packet driver. Find more details and download the new version from Victoria's FDNPKG16 package page. FDNPKG16 is open source, under the MIT license.
Volkov Commander is now open source
Volkov Commander is a small but powerful file manager for DOS. Volkov Commander was originally shareware, but Vsevolod recently released the Volkov Commander source code as open source, using the 2-clause BSD license. You can find the original sources for Volkov Commander 4.05 and Volkov Commander 4.99.09 alpha on Vsevolod V. Volkov's website. Danila Sukharev has also created a VC on GitHub project to archive the sources.