DOS Emulation Under Linux - a Simple Guide

David Precious writes "With just a little work, it's possible to get your Linux system to run DOS applications with very little trouble. Whether you need to run some legacy corporate application, or just want to play some of those old classic DOS games, it's easy to get going. To make it easy, I've produced a simple guide to explain it. Hopefully it'll be of use to some people."

And if DOSemu doesn't work for some reason . . .

[Selanit]

. . . you can also try DOSbox [sourceforge.net], which is a virtual DOS machine.

Re:Keen!!

[croddy]

runs surprisingly well, as does duke nukem 2 :-)

Quake?? Doom??

[j-pimp]

Perhaps he's not aware of the many open source ports of these two for linux with improved EVERYTHING. I reccomend the freedoom wad replacement and legacydoom.

Or do it the easy way.

[Anonymous Coward]

In real [mandrake.com] Linux distributions, click K (or G) > Configuration > Packaging > Install software

Enter root password
search for dos.
Tick the dosbox box. Click install.

All the depencancies are automagically resolved and your done in 10 seconds.

Then click
K > Applications > Emulators > Dosbox

Then volia, the c prompt is here haunt you.

Silly geeks, why do you make your life so hard when it can be so easy now days.

Re:Industrial Programs?

[krymsin01]

Dosemu does do com and lpt interfacing, and as for the dongles, I'd assume that that would be handled by your software.

Then again, I could be wrong... I need sleep.

Re:Or do it the easy way.

[sholden]

Or even just:

# apt-get install dosemu

Re:And if DOSemu doesn't work for some reason . .

[Anonymous Coward]

DOSBox will also run on non-x86 machines. Got MacOSX or LinuxPPC? Works.

Re:Or do it the easy way.

[upside]

Because we geeks know the commandline is quicker. In Mandrake:

urpmi dosbox

Re:Industrial Programs?

[Krunch]

Something like User Mode Linux [sourceforge.net] ?

Re:Duke Nukem 3D

[slux]

I suggest you try Icculus' Duke Nukem 3D GNU/Linux port [icculus.org] if you want to play it rather than fiddling with dosemu or dosbox (which will surely be too slow as it emulates the entire cpu).

The same goes for all the games mentioned in the guide - Quake, Wolf3D, Doom all have versions that can be run natively on GNU/Linux and some are also greatly enhanced. Schorched Earth's original version isn't but several remakes are. The Linux Game Tome [happypenguin.org] is a good starting place if you wish to obtain these.

It's interesting how it might be easier to run legacy Dos apps in GNU/Linux than in Windows (XP) these days. My friend's been dreaming of running a certain old dos game on his WinXP system, but all he has is Dosbox which doesn't run it and even if it did, it would be unplayably slow.

Re:And if DOSemu doesn't work for some reason . .

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.holwegner.com/software/ [holwegner.com] has a MacOS X binary of DOSBox.

DOSEMU / FreeDOS useful for embedded support

[barries]

There's still a dusty corner of systems design and programming that takes place on DOS: some embedded programming tools (compilers, flash burners, in circuit emulator debuggers) for some chips still work "best" on DOS.

Only now, we can use DOSEMU to run them under Linux and get the benefit of real development environment when supporting legacy apps. We can open a bash shell and use Perl, gnu make, emacs/vim, etc to drive development, then have a DOSemu / FreeDOS window to drive download and debug.

It can be quite difficult automating the Windows versions of these tools to that same level. Most of our projects use Windowes tool (running in VMware on Linux), but we did one two years ago hosted on DOSEMU and using Bytecraft's (now) excellent compiler for the PIC chips.

Best of both worlds, and many, many thanks to all the hackers that made it work so well.

- Barrie

It's a bit ironic...

[DarkDust]

I'm still playing DOS games from time to time, like Dune 2. Now the ironic part is that I can't get the sound to work in DOS directly (laptop with an SiS chip, no DOS usable driver avaible) neither does the sound work under Windows ME... but it works without problems in Linux using DOSEmu since it emulates an SoundBlaster 16 and a General MIDI card :-)

DOSBox and Mac OS X.

[Xenex]

"By the way, does anyone know if there is a free program like DOSEMU/DOSBox for MacOS?"

There is a DOSBox package [sourceforge.net] in Fink [sourceforge.net].

Re:A lame question, but...

[slim]

DOSEmu relies on a real x86 processor.

You could instead use Bochs to emulate an x86.

Re:It's a bit ironic... - Try VDMsound

[Artega VH]

May I suggest vdmsound [sourceforge.net] Allowed me to play Dune 2 no problems under windows 2k. Bonus points for it being open source and gpl'ed eh?

Re:Now if only Windows could do the same thing, ri

[Pete]

I thought it rather amusing that all the classic old DOS games that the guy mentioned are in fact available as source ports for Linux (and probably most other OSs).

But in case you didn't know, you can get a very damn cool version of Scorched Earth in 3d here: http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ [scorched3d.co.uk] (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, source, etc.)

I played it with a bunch of friends at a LAN party recently, several of whom had played the DOS Scorched Earth before (I hadn't). Fan-fucking-tastic game. 'Twas a very satisfying moment when I was the first to discover that you could buy mini-nukes as weapons... *evil grin*

Guy who had just been hit with the nuke (along with everyone else who just heard the explosion): "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT???!?!??!"

Pete. :-)

Re:Abandomware

[TwistedSquare]

IIRC, Apogee sell all their old games online on their website www.3drealms.com -quick check- Yep, if you go here: http://store.yahoo.com/3drealms/dowit.html you can find classics such as Duke Nukem (1&2), Commander Keen (various episodes), and lesser known games such as the "cute" Cosmo, Crystal Caves, etc. Those were the days!

Re:Or do it the easy way.

[mcbridematt]

AFAIK aarnet mirror isn't accessible outside Australia and maybe New Zealand.

Gentoo users:

[Trejkaz]

Who needs a tutorial? Just type emerge dosemu.

From one WP-5.1 user to another

[Anna Merikin]

Wp5.1 for DOS was, like all other WP DOS versions, was written in assembly language for "fast keyboard response" according to WP Corp. way back when.

I still use it on DOSemu (easy, start it with -c -k and all the function keys work as expected.)

Re:WP 5.1!!!

[njdj]

Besides that, there were severe graphics issues, you had to have them in the arcane .wpg format.

Actually .wpg is a well-documented format. [faqs.org]

About 14 years ago I remember writing a library for outputting charts in .wpg format. It wasn't too difficult because the docs were quite good. This was for vector graphics, though, which probably isn't what you want. There are free (as in beer) Windows programs which convert other formats to wpg; a quick Google turned up Paint Shop Pro, there must be others. On Linux there is ImageMagick [freshmeat.net] which is also downloadable at no charge.

Re:Quake?? Doom??

[kryptkpr]

"But I am le tired!
so go take a nap.. THEN LAUNCH THE MISSILES!"

here's a link to the swf [cox.net] referred to, for those of you who don't have friends that compulsively forward everything funny they come across..

Re:WP 5.1!!!

[iantri]

You might find it interesting that WP 5.1 WAS ported to UNIX.. unfortunately, it is not available anymore and would probably require a fair bit of modification to get running on anything modern (back to the source code issue).

There were several versions of the graphical WordPerfect available for Linux.. google and you will find a guide to getting them running on a modern distro.

Unfortunately, only the very crippled personal version is available for free, and since Corel killed all their Linux stuff, you can't get it anymore.

Re:DOSemu

[salesgeek]

Thinking about DOSemu and DOSbox remind me of an old article in Wired about the Turbo Switch on computers.

Actually, there were a large number of DOS applications that were coded in assembly for a 4.77Mhz PC. Faster computer would make these programs not work - and some were actual business applications and programs that interfaced with hardware that were written this way. The idea that PC archetecture would be around for 20+ years did not even cross the programmer's mind back then! Originally the purpose of the turbo button was to slow your blazing fast 10Mhz 8088 based PCXT clone to 4.77Mhz so you could software written for the stock IBM PC.

By the time the 386sx came out, the turbo button had lost it's function and the pinto analogy was appropriate. It was a great way to slow down games, though!

Re:Now all I need is a CP/M emulator.

[schwaang]

When I get all nostalgic for my old 8" floppy (drive) I visit the Online Software Museum [sysun.com].

[See "Boot CP/M!" link mid-page.]

My personal favorites (off the top of my head)

[CAIMLAS]

MechWarrior II: 21st Century Combat
Commander Keen
Scorched Earth/TANKS!
Hugo Whodunit (wish I could find a copy of those!)
Raptor: Call of the Shadows/Raptor 2
Descent
Duke Nukem 3D
Command and Conquer (Gold)
Warcraft I and II

Oher than the games listed above, I pretty much missed out on the DOS gaming era - I didn't get a Nintendo until '93 or so, and quite a while longer until I got a PC ('96?).