SvarDOS – an open-source DOS distribution
Source: Hacker News
Overview
SvarDOS is an open‑source project that integrates the best of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development was abandoned by commercial players in the early nineties and now survives only through hobbyists and retro‑enthusiasts, resulting in a sparse and unorganized ecosystem. SvarDOS aims to collect available DOS software and make it easy to find and install applications using a network‑enabled package manager (like apt‑get, but for DOS and able to run on an 8086 PC).
Minimalist and 8086‑compatible
Once installed, SvarDOS is a minimalistic DOS system that offers only a DOS kernel, a command interpreter and the most basic tools for system administration. It is then up to the user to install additional packages. Care is taken so SvarDOS remains 8086‑compatible, at least in its most basic (core) configuration.
Open‑source
SvarDOS is published under the terms of the MIT license. This applies only to SvarDOS‑specific files; the auxiliary packages supplied with SvarDOS may be subject to different licenses (GPL, BSD, Public Domain, Freeware, etc.).
Multilingual
The system can be set up in a wide selection of languages: English, German, French, Polish, Russian, Italian and more.
No “versions”
SvarDOS is a rolling release, meaning that it does not adhere to the concept of “versions”. Once the system is installed, its packages can be kept up‑to‑date using the SvarDOS online update tools (pkg & pkgnet).
Community and help
Need to get in touch? Wish to submit packages, translate SvarDOS, or otherwise contribute? Visit the SvarDOS community forum. You may also want to check the project’s bug tracker.
Downloads
SvarDOS is available in a variety of installation images for different floppy‑disk sizes. The CD image below contains only a virtual floppy to install the bare‑bone SvarDOS system. For a CD image that includes many extra packages, see the repository page.
BNS build (20250427)
A “talking” version for blind users. It uses the PROVOX screen reader and requires a Braille ’n Speak synthesizer connected to COM1. If running as a VM, the BNS can be emulated.
Bleeding edge
⚠ This build has not been thoroughly tested! Let us know how it works for you.
The links above point to the latest builds of installation images. Archival builds can be found in the files section.
Development 🔧
Wondering how SvarDOS is built? All build‑related files, scripts and sources of SvarDOS‑specific tools are stored on the project’s SVN server. To pull the sources using the standard Subversion client:
svn co svn://svn.svardos.org/svardos svardosIf you only wish to take a quick peek, a read‑only mirror of the Subversion tree is available on GitHub, where you can easily browse the development tree.
SvarDOS uses a fork of the Enhanced DR‑DOS kernel, whose development is kept on the EDR GitHub repository.