Hi,
My current DOS system is not freedos.
Because of some of the specs tied to the dell hardware I am being
offered, I am unsure if the DOS package I am currently running will work,
perhaps it will be fine.
the simplicity of running Linux on its own will depend on if the far older
hardware can manage the job though.
While I may be wrong, running freedos in a virtual environment will depend
on if that virtual environment understands standard com port locations,
hardware wise I mean.
Kare
On Sat, 17 Oct 2026, Stefan Monnier wrote:
FreeDOS can run as a guest, under virtualization, but not as a host.
That would create access issues. Linux does not provide, for me personally,
solid screen reader and synthesizer options.
As others mentioned, if you want to have both GNU/Linux and FreeDOS
running at the same time in a single computer, I believe you will have
to do that by running FreeDOS within GNU/Linux rather than the reverse
(in theory, both should be possible, but AFAICT noone implemented the
other direction).
It might still let you run successfully that screen reader and
synthesizer inside FreeDOS. I don't have any experience with that, tho.
I get the impression that it might be simpler for you to keep using your
old FreeDOS system as a frontend and use a separate machine to run
GNU/Linux.
=== Stefan
