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SvarDOS - an open-source DOS distribution
for PCs of the 1980-2000 era
SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties. Nowadays it survives solely through the efforts of hobbyists and retro-enthusiasts, but this is a highly 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 a 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, though - the auxilliary packages supplied with SvarDOS may be subject to different licenses (GPL, BSD, Public Domain, Freeware...).
Multilingual
The system can be set up in a wide selection of languages: English, German, French, Polish, Russian, Italian and more.
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