I doubt it's enough.
dosbox is designed with a graphical backened in mind.

SDL can be used without X. "export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=none" (or "null", don't recall anymore) should do the trick. You will still need the X libraries around as SDL is usually linked against them, but you don't need X running. DOSBox doesn't need to be modified.

Mind you, I have never tried that. Please tell us if it works as I think it should.

ok i'll try that. so i have to install x with all libraries but i don't have to run it?

or is there an easier solution to run simple dos command-tools within linux?
i'm thinking about using a win2k3-server instead...

thnx

fat

You could try dosemu. As long as you don't run xdosemu, it will definitely run from a console without needing X.
No idea if it supports your program. And you have to get a hold of a freedos package as well. And it can be a little tricky to set up.
There are probably debian packages you could get from wherever you get your packages, but if not you could check out http://www.dosemu.org.


(Tried to use the SDL_VIDEODRIVER myself and dosbox without X but no luck. Just got
"Exit to error: Can't init SDL No available video device"
No guarantees that it might not actually work without X for someone else with a different setup.
Wonder if someone were to boot up with a framebuffer, if it might work?)

Guest: You just need the X libraries, not a full-blown X installation. Debian will take care of that automatically. And if that bothers you, you can build your own version of SDL without X support.

And you might have to try different "output" settings.

what about aalib output? 😀