One of the biggest annoyances for me has always been the fact that it's often not possible to play multi-CD games using the original discs (i.e. without having to create an image first) on Linux: the disc can't be ejected while the dosbox process still has open references to the drive.

The open references seem to have two sources:

• Using the "-usecd" option to open the drive for low level access (required for several games).
• Lazy applications not closing their old file handles (example: Gabriel Knight 2)

The attached proof-of-concept patch tries to solve this problem by closing both the drive and file handles when the virtual machine is paused (alt + pause). When unpaused the drive is opened again (files are currently not reopened).

Would there be any interest in adding the possibility to "unlock" the CD drive into the official DOSBox code? If so I'd further refine the patch - for personal use it's fine for me in it's current state 😉

Disclaimer: As already said the patch in it's current state is just a proof of concept and will almost certainly make your game crash when you pause DOSBox and the game doesn't expect a CD change.