DOS programs with dosemu

Installing DOS emulation

Install dosemu at a console, Accessories ‣ Terminal, with the commands:

sudo aptitude install dosemu xauth
sudo sysctl -w vm.mmap_min_addr=0
sudo bash < <(echo 'echo "vm.mmap_min_addr=0" >> /etc/sysctl.conf')

The DOS system can be started from Applications ‣ System Tools ‣ DOS emulator.

Note

xauth is required for remote X11 execution over ssh. Some versions of Ubuntu (8.04, for example) omit this package.

DOS performance and video

Change dosemu configuration with commands to edit either global configuration file sudoedit /etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf or user file nano ~/.dosemurc.

Emulate the DOS 640X480 EGA/VGA display with the command:

echo '$_X_font = vga12x30' >> ~/.dosemurc

The following command would change this setting globally for all users:

sudo sed -ie "/$_X_font/c\$_X_font = vga12x30" /etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf

Note

DOS video configurations include: vga, vga8x19, vga11x19, vga10x24, vga12x30, vga-cp866, and vga10x20-cp866.

To make dosemu run faster for the current user, add a command:

echo '$_hogthreshold = (xx)' >> ~/.dosemurc

where xx is the percentage of CPU time to devote to dosemu, which defaults to 1 percent.

Running Dosemu

Interactive DOSemu sessions

To start an interactive DOSemu session, type dosemu at the console or select Applications ‣ System ‣ DOS emulator from the system menu.

Exit the command line of an interactive session by typing exitemu or by pressing Control-Alt-PgDn.

Keyboard Capture

Press <Shift-Ctrl-Alt-K> to switch into and out of keygrab mode in DOSEMU. The <Shift> is required in KDE, optional in Gnome and maybe other desktops.

DOS program sessions

A DOS program may be executed from the Linux command line by calling dosemu followed by the name of the DOS program (.bat, .exe, .com) to execute. When the called program exits in DOSemu, the DOSemu session will close.

Scripted DOSemu sessions

If other commands are required in the context of the DOS program, then a shell script may perform the complete task. For example, suppose program WARES would change shared file permissions from public to private when executed by a user not in group __USERS__. Issuing a chmod command after executing WARES would fix permissions. A script wares.sh for this purpose could be created with command nano ~/wares.sh:

dosemu C:\WARES.BAT
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/samba/shares/wares/*

Make the shell script executable with command chmod +x ~/wares.sh. Finally, run the DOS session by typing ~/wares.sh at the console.

Accessing Linux file shares

The dosemu command LREDIR will mount a Linux directory to a DOS drive letter; for example:

LREDIR W: LINUX\FS/home/samba/shares/wares
LREDIR S: LINUX\FS/home/samba/shares/public

A DOS batch file within dosemu can incorporate mount commands and DOS program execution, as illustrated previously with C:\WARES.BAT. To create this batch file, start dosemu and enter the file with the command EDIT WARES.BAT:

LREDIR W: LINUX\FS/home/samba/shares/wares
LREDIR S: LINUX\FS/home/samba/shares/public
W:
WARES.BAT WARES

Save the batch file and exit the editor with <Alt-F>,S;<Alt-F>,X. Then type the name of the batch file to execute it.