First post, by divinity
Hello!
I installed FreeDos on my old laptop but i could not get sound to work. DOS seems to require some specific Soundcards which i do not own.
So i thought i should make a Linux OS which boots direct into a Dos Emulator (Dosbox and DosEmu2)
I couldn't accomplish making an Linux OS for now, i'm struggling with Buildroot. https://www.buildroot.org/
But i wrote some scripts for Dosbox and DosEmu2 for launching, copying files to Images and automatically making ISOs(*.cue,*.bin) from CDROM compatible with Dosbox.
And i made a frontend for launching these tasks. (the frontend does start in fullscreen with an intro video - frontend is "Attract Mode" http://www.attractmode.org)
I uploaded a first Beta which should run on all major Linux x64 Distros. (Tested on Arch Linux and Ubuntu Mate)
It uses relative paths, so you can extract and run it wherever you want.
Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/2c2jgfljlw12auz … 1_beta1.tar.bz2 ~568MB <--old version
Download the fixed version here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/k31gp1kedfs8dtf … eta1fix.tar.bz2 ~57MB
It requires at least 5,8 GB HDD space for extracting.
DosEmu2 is interesting because it can run Quake1 with QDOS engine http://dk.toastednet.org/QDOS/ in 1024x768 resolution with 60-70 FPS on my Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz.
I've included Quake1 Shareware for testing.
And i have some questions:
1) Is there a way to mount Images bigger than 2GB in Dosbox? Or is there a Tool which can create Images from Files/Directories?
2) Does anyone have experience making a Linux Distro? I know there are a lot of applications out there, but most of them can only make a LiveCD.
I need a Distro which can run LiveCD and an Installer or a .img file which can be written with Etcher https://etcher.io/ like Batocera Linux https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/ .
And it should be able run a lightweight Desktop like Openbox or Fluxbox. It does not matter which Linux x64 because FreeDosEmuBox is made to run on all Linux Distos.
Are there any tools you can recommend? (other than Buildroot)
3) Does DosEmu2 run that fast on your PC? (seems like it needs a KVM enabled CPU to run fast)
my TODO list:
- make Linux Distro "FreeDosEmuBox-OS" which boots into the frontend or Dosbox/DosEmu2 (can be choosen by a script)
- DosEmu2 make CDROM and IPX working
- the ability to select and edit different Dosbox config files
- polish some of the scripts
- Dosbox and Dosemu2 startup script - IPX startserver/connect & mount ISO files
I made a video of the frontend artwork and DosEmu2 with Quake1 running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIIvR2A9_3A
that's all for now,
regards - Tom (divinity)
EDIT: forgot to make ./emus/Filesystems/isos folder - please add "isos" folder manually or ripping cds and mounting with dosbox does not work
EDIT 2nd: i could reduce the filesize for the download to 57MB. And ISOs folder is now there.
Download the fixed version here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/k31gp1kedfs8dtf … eta1fix.tar.bz2 ~57MB