How to install DOSbox?

[Stigah]

Hello! First of all, I must apologize for my bad English.
I got my Raspberry for just a few days ago. I have never touched Linux before (I have just tested Ubuntu a little bit). I bought my Pi, so I could learn Linux, Python, and other languages. And of course, to have a lot of fun!

So. I wanted to install DOSbox, so I could play old games for MS-DOS.
I downloaded dosbox_0.74.orig.tar.gz on my laptop, and moved it over to the Pi. After a long time, I managed to move the file to the desktop, without using a mouse (I still don't know how to move files with commands, but I manage to move it in the GUI thing)

Anyway. I decompress it with typing: tar -zxvf dosbox_0.74.orig.tar.gz . Now I got a lot of files. A lot of .txt files, .sh, .in and .sub files. But no "exe" file (I know Linux is not using exe, I just forgot the file format Linux is using).
I tried to type sudo dosbox, but it didn't work.

Right now, I have no idea what to do. I know it is possible to run DOSbox on the Pi.

I opened the INSTALL file, that told me I needed something called Simple DirectMedia Library. I downloaded it, placed it in the same folder as DOSbox, and then I decompressed it. It's still not working.

So. Could anybody here please tell me how to do this? Because I am lost right now. I have tried everything, but it dosn't work.

I would really appreciate it if someone here would help me! Thank you!

[ghans]

First , do no not try to install anything from the Net , even if it's
labelled "for Linux". In 80 % of the cases it will not work.

PROTIP : Raspbian is essentially Debian
Debian comes with package managment ,
long before Appstores and the like existed. Most Linux distros
have package managment , and under Debian it's called APT
(Advanced Package Managment).
Packages are stored in online repositories , and accessed through
a package manager.

apt-get is a simple command-line tool
aptitude is a graphical package manager
synaptic is a GUI package manager

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dosbox

DosBOX should appear in the menu.

ghans

[Stigah]

Thank you very much! I didn't know it was that easy. Unfortunately, I don't have a wired network right here, so I had to move my Raspberry another place, just to download it. But I can download the games on my laptop, and just move them over to the memory stick.

Anyway. I am having some trouble with DOSBox. When I am pressing Q, I get 7. A is u, H is ], enter is t, etc.
Is there any way to fix this?

When I run DOSbox trought the GUI, I have no problems (Or. DOSbox thinks I have an english keyboard layout, even if I use a scandinavian layout)

In DOSbox, it says: "To activate the keymapper ctrl-F1". But when I press ctrl+F1, I just enter "y,".

So. Do you have any idea what is wrong? Thank you very much for answering!

[Cloudcentric]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 71#p306771

[Stigah]

Yes, I have looked there aswell. I am going to write an answer soon. But I still get the error. I did download DOSbox using

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dosbox

Then I try to run DOSbox from the command line, by just entering "DOSbox". The program starts fine, but I can't enter anything. Or, I can, but it's just random numbers and letters.

[ghans]

Try

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sudo raspi-config

and adjusting you regional settings (keyboard layout , etc.) .

ghans

[Stigah]

Thank you for answering!
I have done that already. I changed language to Norwegian, and keyboard layout to Norwegian. It works fine when writing in e.g. Nano, or the web browser. The only program I have problems with the Norwegian keyboard layout, is DOSbox.

[ghans]

AFAIK DosBOX has it's own keyboard settings too ...
you should check the docs !

ghans

[LemmeFatale]

Whilst I haven't used DOSBox on my Raspberry Pi at this time, I'm not aware of any differences from the norm that will render this advice incorrect...

Take a look at the file dosbox.conf - with any luck, this should be in your home directory (that is, /home/pi if you haven't changed from the default user - if you have, then simply substitute your actual username instead of "pi"). You can open it with any text editor.

In there, you should be able to find the following towards the end of the file;

[dos]
# xms: Enable XMS support.
# ems: Enable EMS support.
# umb: Enable UMB support.
# keyboardlayout: Language code of the keyboard layout (or none).

xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=none

As the commented-out lines in the file indicate, you should be able to input the correct country-code in place of none here, and this should get it using the correct keyboard layout. In this case, you need to write the country code for Norway, which is no - as far as I know, and according to this, this needs to be lower-case.

Hopefully this should fix it!

[obcd]

There is a "use scancode" (something like it) in the dosbox.conf settings. To my knowledge it has to be on for the Pi keyboard to work as expected.

[Stigah]

Thank you both for answering! I have been looking for the file "dosbox.conf" for a hour now, and I can't find it.
In /home/pi/ I have Desktop, mcpi, minecraft-pi-0.1.1.tar.gz and python_games
In /home/pi/Desktop/dosbox, I have the following files/folders:

acinclude.m4, AUTHORS, ChangeLOG, config.h.in, configure, COPYING, docs, INSTALL, Makefile.am missing, README, THANKS, aclocal.m4, autogen.sh, config.guess, config.sub, configure.in, depcomp, include, install-sh, Makefile.in, NEWS, src and visualc_net, but no dosbox.conf.

I have of course looked trought all the files with the name "config". config.h.in, configure, config.sub, configure.in, but it's not there. I have opened all the files in Nano, and searched for "keyboardlayout", but I can't find anything.

[obcd]

The dosbox.conf file is created in a hidden folder .dosbox.
Note the dot in front of the folder that makes it hidden.
Try sudo find / -name .dosbox or sudo find / -name dosbox.conf

[Stigah]

Thank you very much! I found the file, and I found the following:

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xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=auto

I changed it from auto to no, (keyboardlayout=no) but it's still not working.

There is a "use scancode" (something like it) in the dosbox.conf settings. To my knowledge it has to be on for the Pi keyboard to work as expected.

usescancodes was already set to true.

EDIT:
I changed usescancodes to false, and now it's working perfect! I can now use DOSbox! Thank you very much, everybody! Thank you!

[Jessie]

I never got dosbox working in with Raspbian without running it from within LXDE. I tried and tried to get it going from the CLI and I kept having the exact same issue with the KB and random lock-ups. There are users here that have gotten it to work, but none of their fixes worked for me. From what I understand performance isn't that different. The performance is pretty bad, I couldn't run Quest for Glory 1 without it slowing down on some screens. Adding "core = simple" to the conf file buys you some extra speed but not much and it will cost you compatability of some software (none that I tried though.) I also never got sound working with it in Raspbian.

fastdosbox for RiscOS is much faster but I haven't wrapped my head around RiscOS yet so I have yet to do anything useful with it yet. But from my preliminary useage it seems to be much speedier.

Edit: Sorry just noticed your edit.

[ulysess]

did you try rpix86?

Pi Store: http://store.raspberrypi.com/projects/rpix86

[Jessie]

did you try rpix86?

Pi Store: http://store.raspberrypi.com/projects/rpix86

I have not. Thanks for pointing it out I will give it a go this weekend. Just in time to have some people over for some old school dos games.

[Jessie]

I could not get rpix86 to install through the pistore. I would like to give it a go. But I have the feeling I'm going to have to download it straight from the author when I have time.

[Pate]

Jessie, what sort of a problem did you get with the install? Feel free to reply into the rpix86 thread, to keep this thread about DOSBox and not rpix86.

If you got the zip to download, you can simply unzip it and run it, it does not actually need much in the way of installation.

Pate

[franck]

Hi,

Just to mention that FastDosbox, already popular on RISC OS is now available for Raspbian for the Raspberry Pi on the PiStore : http://store.indiecity.com/projects/fastdosbox
FastDosbox 1.5 brings to the Pi an enhanced experience of DOS emulation, running in full screen mode (with no borders), running at the speed of a 386 @ 25Mhz, all of this with the usual features of Dosbox.

[jostein.topland]

You should rather compile DOSBox yourself, in order to have an ARM architecture specific build. This will improve speed significantly!

You'll need to download the latest SVN trunk files from SourceForge, autoconf and libsdl1.2 using apt. Then simply enter the trunk directory and run configure && make.

Note - Even Raspberry Pi B+ runs slow with the "default" x86 DOSBox build from the main apt repos, but an ARM build runs it smoothly. Doom will go from ~5 fps to perfect!

[DougieLawson]

Try adding this set of compiler flags

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-mcpu=cortex-a7 -mfpu=neon-vfpv4