Linux inside Dosbox - any success yet? \ VOGONS

Linux inside Dosbox - any success yet?

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First post, by Quadko

Posted on 2014-07-26, 03:44

Quadko Offline

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I was wondering if anyone had success running a light/old distro of linux on doxbox 74?

I see old topics that say "no way in .72," but nothing more recent bubbled up in the search.

I know I can run it for real in something like VirtualBOX, but I love the lightweight-ness of dosbox compared to the VMs I've used and would love to fool around with a little linux toy if it were an option.

Or, is there another lightweight linux toy I can run in win7, forgetting DoxBox? By "lightweight" I guess I mean portable on thumb drive, no crazy VM drivers that they all seem to install, and doesn't even have to talk to the network or shared filesystem somehow, though that would be nice.

Reply 1 of 5, by Quadko

Posted on 2014-07-26, 14:11

Quadko Offline

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After thinking about this, if it were to work to run some toy linux on dosbox, it would have to be a 16 bit linux distro one that probably has to be able to boot from a floppy image. (Maybe a CD or harddrive image.) It would have to talk to the hardware as emulated in limited fashion by DosBox.

Or, it would have to be a linux distro that was built on top of dos calls (emulated more completely in DosBox than hardware), more of a "linux services on dos" or "linux loader and layer" than bare metal linux distro.

So, probably would have to be a linux distro invented specially for the purposes of running in DoxBox. And if such a thing existed, it should pop to the top of a "doxbox linux" search, and this community would be the first to know of it.

That sound about right? Anything you can add or correct me on?

Reply 2 of 5, by Dominus

Posted on 2014-07-26, 14:39

Dominus Offline

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Read through the dosbox-x thread in the patches forum. With that it has been done

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 3 of 5, by Quadko

Posted on 2014-07-26, 20:08

Quadko Offline

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I'm reading through it, very interesting. It's been a while since I've dug deeply into hardware issues like the IDE stuff it starts with! A fun re-entry into that world. I'll keep reading.

Reply 4 of 5, by butterfly

Posted on 2014-08-29, 22:29

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This booter game posted by aqrit, unless I be mistaken, seems to be using linux to boot and it works. It's not a whole operating system though Re: Booter FlappyBird Clone

Reply 5 of 5, by Quadko

Posted on 2014-08-30, 16:20

Quadko Offline

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That's a cool idea. I don't think I've understood the details of what he's done yet, but the discussion and idea is sure fun. I love the idea of new games on DOSBox as cross-platform delivery system.

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