DOSBox 0.63 in Linux

1. Compile and Install

Though there are pre-compiled versions of DOSBox for different distros, it is always fun to build your own. This way, you can tweak the source any way you like (not to mention the fact that I prefer Slackware Linux).

Download the source tarball from the downloads page at dosbox.sourceforge.net to any directory and untar it with...

tar zxf dosbox-0.63.tar.gz

Substitute your source tarball's name for the dosbox-0.63.tar.gz. If your copy of tar does not support the -z flag, run gunzip (or gunzip2) on the file first before using tar. There should now be a directory called dosbox-0.63 so you should enter it.

Once in the extracted directory, you'll want to do the following...

./autogen.sh

That should run and generate a configure script. If it does not run, try...

sh autogen.sh

Once that is done, just run...

./configure
make

Running ./configure --help outputs possible flags to pass to the configure script but usually, none are necessary. After running make, you can either stop and let DOSBox remain in this directory or install it into the system with...

make install

Remember that you will need root access to run make install, so either sudo in or whatever mechanism you're comfortable with.

2. Setting up DOSBox

If you installed DOSBox into your linux system, dosbox is located at...

/usr/local/bin/dosbox

If you didn't install DOSBox to the system, enter the src directory. Here, you will find the executable...

dosbox

The rest of this guide assumes that you installed DOSBox to the system using make install so please make the necessary corrections if you used another method of install. To quickly get DOSBox up and running, type...

dosbox

The first thing to do after starting DOSBox for the first time is to create a standard config file. You can do this quickly by typing the following at the DOSBox command prompt.

config -writeconf dosbox.conf

This will create the generic config file in your working directory. To run DOSbox with this config file, use the following...

dosbox -conf dosbox.conf

You can copy dosbox.conf and customize it for specific applications and games.

3. Establishing Mounts

In DOSBox, the default prompt is Z: but you will probably want to mount a C:. Usually C: is a directory where you plan on installing/storing your games and programs. Its best to create a directory within your home directory, something like...

mkdir /home/USER/oldgames

At the DOSBox command prompt, typing...

mount c /home/USER/oldgames

will mount /home/USER/oldgames as C: and treat it like a drive. You can also mount cd/dvd drives using the above command. For my setup, it would look like...

mount d /mnt/cdrom

This adds a D: drive that will access /mnt/cdrom. Make sure you mount a cd or dvd before accessing D:. If you don't, D: will show up empty and contain no files. There are several advanced settings specific to mounting cd/dvd drives. There is a guide for these settings available at http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php? … s%2FMount#CDROM.

Using the mount command at the DOSBox command prompt is fine but after a while you may want it done automatically for you. You will need to modify your specific DOSBox config file. If you are using a config file created using the config command at the DOSBox command prompt, go to the section with the tag [autoexec].

Under the [autoexec] tag, enter the mounts that you want DOSBox to run at startup. We can type in the mount command we used above for adding a C: and D:. Your config file should look something like this:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c /home/USER/oldgames
mount d /mnt/cdrom

The next time you run DOSBox with this config file, C: and D: will automatically be mounted.

4. Additional Details

At this point, you've established a basic dosbox setup. There are many more options available in the "More specific topics" section of the DOSBox wiki, http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/.