DOSEMU

[JRS]

DOSEMU is a PC Emulator application that allows Linux to run a DOS operating system in a virtual x86 machine. (hardware VM)

These are the capabilities of DOSEMU that are worth noting:

• color text and full keyboard emulation (via hotkeys) even on a terminal
• built-in X Window System support (includes IBM character set font) including fullscreen X (via Ctrl-Alt-F)
• graphics capability at the console (for most compatible video cards) (requires suid-root or sudo)
• graphics emulation in X for many color modes (X-server may be in true color mode)
• DPMI support (runs games like DOOM)
• runs most 16-bit and 32-bit DPMI-compliant video games (including those based on DOS/4GW) at the Linux console and on X
• integrated (command line) instruction level debugger, various break points, single stepping etc.
• integrated EMS and XMS drivers
• integrated packet driver
• integrated mouse driver
• integrated joystick driver
• CDROM support
• ASPI driver support (CD writers, scanners, tapes etc.) (requires access rights to /dev/sgX)
• support for redirected drives (any Linux directory can be 'mounted' as DOS drive via the lredir command)
• can even directly boot from a Linux directory containing all DOS files
• sound support (including sound DMA and Midi)
• NetWare and other network connectivity via built-in IPX and pktdrvr support
• the dosemu-freedos binary package starts a DOS-"C:\>"-Drive 'out-of-the-box' in a normal user's $HOME directory and runs without any further configuration (no root rights needed)

[JRS]

Here is the rest of the MS QB lineup running under DOSEMU. It is amazing how well these old Basic languages run under Linux.

[JRS]

This is one of the first games I actually played for any length of time. (Doom2)

It's great to see these old DOS games finally run the way they were intended. DOSEMU with virtual 8086 hardware VM is the only DOS environment I have found that runs everything perfectly out of the box.

[John]

1988 vintage MS GWBASIC running under DOSEMU. How is that for DOS compatibility?

Download GWBASIC.EXE

[John]

I just installed DOSEMU under Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit. Works great!