On Mon, 26 May 2003, Tim Wegner wrote:
This is very interesting. Could you add a little step-by-step information on how to do this? I've never used dosemu.
ok.. this is a short howto.. What I'll say has been tested on Mandrake (7.1 and 7.2) and RedHat 8.0 feel free to ask for any further info.. cheers, Piero FRACTINT+DOSEMU I. Downloading the pieces you need are: - the emulator (dosemu) - a dos operating system (drdos) dosemu is usually found as part of any linux distribution, so it is likely that it's already installed, or that you can find it on the linux CDs or on rpmfind.net thus, just download the rpm and install it downloading the DOS is trickier. You can use either a working dos partition, or a simulated one living in a (small) file in your linux filesystem. I use the second method, having a "hard drive image" (hdimage in the following) as /var/lib/dosemu/hdimage_etc_etc. I use a DRDOS hdimage. DRDOS has a long story, but since the end of the dos age it has been owned by several companies. A drdos hdimage was released a few years ago by Caldera. More on this later, but *now* please go to this page: http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/261403/idpa/261403 and download this file: drdos-hdimage-eval-7.03-4.i386.rpm II. Installing after rpm'ing the dosemu and the hdimage, the files that matter are: /etc/dosemu.conf /etc/dosemu.users /var/lib/dosemu/global.conf /var/lib/dosemu/hdimage.drdos703.eval global.conf won't require any tuning. But you have to edit dosemu.users and add your username and the privileges that you'd like to have. Just add a line saying: your_username c_all where c_all means that you will have root privileges. It's not an elegant solution, but it's the easiest way to make things run ;) N.B. You won't need to log in as root. But, your DOS shell will do have root privileges. So be careful... Then also edit dosemu.conf and look for the line beginning with: $_hdimage = "xxxx" and replace the xxxx with the name of your hdimage (hdimage.drdos703.eval in this case). If something goes wrong, just tell me and I'll provide the conf files which run on my machine. III. Running download the dos fractint and install in a directory of your choice in your linux filesystem then just say: "xdos" at your shell's prompt and a dos window should open (I assume you're running X...) you'll find yourself at the C> prompt, just give the command: L: and you will be transported to the linux filesystem. It'll be like looking at linux with a sort of DOS glasses ;) All the linux filesystem will be mapped on the DOS L: drive. So you will have to chdir to \home\yourself\etcetera. Now just chdir to the fractint directory and start the program. IV. Discussion (about licenses and hdimages and other boring stuff) I've tried to be as short as possible, but there is something more I have to say about the hdimage. The problem is that: - the drdos "eval" hdimage as a nasty licence that doesn't allow redistribution - I've lost trace of who now owns DRDOS. It was born at Digital Research, who was sold to Novell, who sold drdos to Caldera. Caldera gave birth to "Caldera thin clients" who became Lineo who renamed drdos "opendos". At some point this nice piece of software was again called drdos. All this mess means that it's difficult to find and download the hdimage from the internet, but with some googling I've found that web page I've said above. So, why do I insist on using DRDOS? The alternatives could be: 1. MSDOS - but I should create myself an hdimage, and I don't know how-to-do, and moreover I no longer have a dos (neither a windows) partition 2. freedos. Look at freedos.org, it's promising, at actually runs. Freedos could be my dos of choice, *if only* I could access the linux filesystem from dos. But for now I can't say "L:" and go to my linux dirs; I'd have to use the mtools instead to move files between linux and dos. Thus, it's a matter of taste.. if anybody wants to explore freedos, feel free to update this howto!