IIRC, with VirtualBox, you can share a folder on the host machine with the virtual machine. I don't know how that could be accessed from the FreeDOS VM, though. Unfortunately for me, the FreeDOS Fractint appliance just hangs on my Debian systems here. I also have DOS Fractint running under DOSBox emulator. I believe that has a command (to run in the DOSBox) that maps a Linux folder to a drive letter in the DOSBox. Then you can read and write files from DOS Fractint while having easy access to them from Linux. I prefer XFractint even if it does lack color cycling. -- David W. Jones gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://dancingtreefrog.com On 06/11/2017 02:44 PM, David W Riccio wrote:
Hi Hal,
I did a bit of testing:
1) On Linux I created an empty floppy image (.img) file, downloaded the FreeDOS-Fractint.ova that is on the fractint website, created a new vm in VirtualBox using the .ova , changed the settings in the floppy drive section to point to the .img file I created (it will be the A: drive in DOS), started the VM and booted up FreeDos. Then from the c: prompt I did
Format a:
It formated the image as a DOS diskette
I then copied a fractal (xxx.GIF) to the A: drive and shut down the DOS vm.
I then mounted the .IMG file in Linux and the xxx.GIF file is visible and can be copied to the host OS
--- so the Diskette method works albeit kind of a round about way :)
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2) I fired up a Windows XP VM on the same Linux box and installed both the DOS and WinXP versions of Fractint
Both worked great and of course you can transfer files using standard Windows file system / networking to the host.
So if you can find someone with an old XP machine with a valid lic. for XP ... this is a great way to go. (as an aside, once the VM XP machine has been patched and activated you can clone it and both version will be usable, I have lots of old XP machines that I have placed into VMs to protect them and I only had to create one VM appliance to do this with ... I have lic. for all of them but I did not need to activate each one with a separate ID.)
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--- RE Questions about VirtualBox
VirtualBox will allow you to run as many guest machines as you have memory and CPU resources to accommodate ... I have host machines running a dozen or so WinXP vm service machines doing various things ... you are limited by memory mostly and your disk space is limited to the amount you actually use which is dynamically allocated, memory is the only hard constraint as it is not shared between VMs ... for DOS I don't know the limit but I would guess you could run dozens (maybe hundreds) of copies on a modern workstation. They can all run independent of each other under the single hyper-visor. I have a machine with newer xeon processors and it has 64 cores of CPU and I have never come close to maxing it out.
The console of the virtual box will let see the status (in a thumb nail) of each VM in real time. (there is a better way to do this if you have Win XP machines and you want to monitor them from a single Windows 10 machine ... see this link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44989 ) I use this to monitor and control all my XP machines from a single Win 10 machine. (This will work for both real XP computers and for VM XP computers and also for other versions of Windows)
You may need to change settings in your BIOS to enable Visualization
I have not tried to open a VDI (VirtualBox dynamic disk image) of a VM but it is just a container with a standard disk image in it so I don't see why that method for getting to the Fractals you created would not work ... worth an experiment :)
----RE: batch files
... one for networking / one for creating fractals ... those would be .bat files in the VM so you could boot the DOS to one version when you are creating fractals and the network version when you want to transfer the images to the outside. The .bat could be choices in the autoexec.bat file that is on the C: drive in the VM (There is a menu and choice in there now to how you want to boot the DOS for memory management now)
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Networking Note:
If you are going to try and get networking to work in your FreeDOS vm ... be sure you set it up to be in the same workgroup as your Win10 machine
Also you will need to change the Networking setting in the Setting tab of VirtualBox from NAT to Bridged (so it will be on the same network as your host)
On 06/11/2017 03:45 PM, Harold Lane wrote:
David, Thanks for your prompt, detailed reply. I see that using the FreeDOS as the Guest OS has DOS-like memory problems (which running Win XP's built-in DOS would not have.)
I'm pleased to learn that: "the newer machines are so much faster ... that they will perform faster than [Fractint used to on older] bare hardware."
I'm going to reread and think about what option I want to try first. I had hoped to use the FreeDOS, as my Win XP version is a factory install disk for a specific PC. And I don't have the Win XP service packs saved.
Your option #2: "create two batch files to boot the FreeDOS: one for creating the Fractals that maximizes resources (mostly memory) for Fractint, and one for networking (which loads the network drivers and uses a bit more memory for that function.)" seems potentially attractive to me.
Q: Would those two batch file versions of FreeDOS each be a separate Guest image in VirtualBox? <== <==
I saw in the FreeDOS docs: http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/VirtualBox_-_Chapter_6 that one can "Mount the FreeDOS image to transfer files." They show screencaps where they mount the entire (not currently running!) Guest image file as a drive letter in Windows, and claim that "you can see all FreeDOS files in Windows Explorer." Sounds like another way to move files between OS's...
They note: "...take care to eject the image before you start up the FreeDOS guest in VirtualBox."
I may want to communicate with you again...
Thanks again!
P. S.: I forgot to ask you, do you know if one can run two VMs at the same time -- perhaps two instances of VirtualBox, each with a guest? <== <== I ask because I have lots of RAM and CPU cores, and would like to be able to run more than one instance of Fractint at the same time. The last time I was able to do that successfully was under Win 98!
- Hal Lane
######################## # hallane@earthlink.net ########################
-----Original Message----- From: Fractint [mailto:fractint-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of David W Riccio Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 5:05 PM To: fractint@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Fractint] VirtualBox version of FreeDos with Fractint
Hal, There a couple of options for moving files into and out of the FreeDOS machine.
1) You can map a diskette drive (or an image file of a diskette drive to the VM) and copy files into it or out of the diskette image.
(There are tools that will create (or mount) a diskette .img file available for most OS ... I know I tested something that worked in Win10 but these days I am mostly using Linux as my base / host OS and that function is built into Linux. I have been using Win10 for things like Photoshop and software that will only run in Windows but I have been running it in a VM under Linux)
2) You can start networking in FreeDOS (I think the virtual machine I posted has networking tools included, if not, you can download the FreeDOS CD image that does contain them and move them into the Fractal VM from the CD image.) There is a guide to setting up a small and limited FTP server in the FreeDOS environment. You can then point any FTP client at the FreeDOS VM and just copy files into and out of the VM ... You should create two batch files to boot the FreeDOS one for creating the Fractals that maximizes resources (mostly memory) for Fractint and one for networking (which loads the network drivers and uses a bit more memory for that function.)
3) I think the networking software in FreeDOS will talk to a standard windows SMB share or any server running SMB (like a Linux machine with Samba or a Windows Share on Win 10, 7, XP.) You can map the remote drive to a drive letter in the FreeDOS machine and it will look like a disk drive to both Win10 and FreeDOS. This requires you setup networking in FreeDOS (see the FreeDOS site for details) ... I know I had this working but I am not sure I included it in the VM that is on the Fractint site.
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By the way, it is possible to run Windows XP in a VM on Windows 10 (but you need install disks for Windows XP and the Service packs to bring it up to the last version Microsoft patched before they stop sending out patches) ... the advantage to this is you can run Fractint directly in XP's "DOS" environment (or in DOSBOX if you prefer) ... And you have all the networking to built in that will share drives between Fractint and the host Windows 10 machine.
I do this so I can still use Photoshop CS2 on my Windows 10 Photoshop machine. It works without any issues. The only disadvantage of doing this is you must own a copy of Windows XP and a valid XP activation key ... (it is also the reason we can't post/share a VM with with all the software pre-configured ) I can confirm that this will work on Windows 10 and Windows XP in a VM under the most recent version of VirtualBox on that Windows 10 host. (This gives you back the Virtual XP machine that was part of Windows 7)
While there is a hit to performance by running a guest OS on a Host machine the newer machines are so much faster than any old base hardware available to DOS or XP that they will perform faster than they did on bare hardware. And you don't have to go looking for drivers for graphics cards etc. They are built into VirtualBox.
For XP guest machines there are extensions in VirtualBOX that will provide a wonderful video driver that you can configure as a display equal to or larger than your Windows 10 machine. It also provides for USB pass-thru so you can access most of your USB devices. (these guest extensions do not work in a DOS guest machine but work fine in a XP guest machine)
On 06/11/2017 10:01 AM, Harold Lane wrote:
David, Many thanks for your links to the VirtualBox version of FreeDos with Fractint included/embedded! I'm going to give this a try on my Win 10 computer.
You said: "it's isolated from the rest of your system." I have a question: If Fractint writes its images to an isolated virtual hard drive, what methods can one use to get the Images from there to the Windows environment in order to share?
- Hal Lane
######################## # hallane@earthlink.net ########################
-----Original Message----- From: Fractint [mailto:fractint-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of David W Riccio Sent: Friday, June 9, 2017 8:09 PM To: fractint@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Fractint] JunoCam fractal video
There is a VirtualBox version on https://fractint.net/ that works on Windows 10 (any Op Sys that will run VirtualBox)
It is running in FreeDOS in a VM so it isolated from the rest of your system.
Look at this link https://fractint.net/ftp/virtual_environments/