I have a machine who’s mission is to run FreeDOS. It will do this most of the time, but sometimes it would be nice to be able to get it connected to a modern network to transfer DOS files out to my ‘production machine’ If DOS is like Windows the system clock ticks local time, but usually Linux likes UTC time - so this may be an issue that needs resolving too.
UPDATE - For now I have Debian in multi-user mode. I have set Grub to remember what I chose last so reboots from FreeDOS are hands free after ctrl-alt-del (Just like if FreeDOS were the only OS here) I have set the clock in Debian to run on the local timezone too, Thanks over_clox. Please continue to recommend your favorite distro.
sudo timedatectl set-local-rtc 1https://www.baeldung.com/linux/real-time-clock-rtc-local-time
This is The Way.
Gentoo! Lets you control what exactly gets in your packages.
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Yes, I think Alpine is very good for this purpose because it is very lightweight. Otherwise you can try Debian CLI
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why not use FreeDOS to connect to the network directly?
I am still figuring out DOS networking.
Update - The on-board Ethernet is a Realtec of some sort


