Dosemu2: Run DOS programs under Linux

by todsacerdoti • 6 years ago

10 5 6 years ago

rsanders• 6 years ago

Ha! I picked up the original project (dosemu1) from an abandoned skeleton created by Matthias Lautner. I was a larval programmer and Linux was very much in its infancy. I really wanted to run Civilization on my one computer without keeping the DOS partition around -- staying on 24/7 Linux was a point of pride back then. While I got quite a few programs running well under dosemu, I never had much time to play Civilization after picking up the project.

Thankfully, when I got out of my depth and then joined a fledgling new ISP (MindSpring) as the first engineer, the worthy James MacLean took over and turned it into a solid system. Not sure why I'm not listed in the THANKS, but perhaps it's revenge for the poor code quality I left behind. :-)

It was one of the most enjoyable projects of my career, despite or perhaps because of how little I knew and how much I had to learn.

- root @ hrothgar

lproven2• 6 years ago

This was the subject of a fascinating talk at FOSDEM in 2018: https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/dosemu_and_fr...

The slides are here: https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/dosemu_and_fr...

TL;DR summary...

The original DOSemu uses the x86-32 V86 mode, as discussed in this HN post today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24555689

Essentially, the 386 had a sort of hardware-assisted VM that let it run 8086 OSes under multiple virtual 8086 machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_8086_mode

The problem is that x86-64 doesn't have this any more.

Slightly more info: https://dosemu2.github.io/dosemu2/

Koshkin2• 6 years ago

Shouldn't it be named DINE?

lproven2• 6 years ago

Er, no?

WINE _replaces_ Windows completely. Despite the name, it is a sort of emulator, really.

DOSemu runs real actual DOS in a kinda-sorta dedicated VM.

Koshkin2• 6 years ago

Truly not an emulator, then!

Dosemu2: Run DOS programs under Linux

Related Stories