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I would like to execute FreeDOS within Linux without using any VDI.

Is it even possible or what I am looking for is not practical at all ?

EDIT:

I had created freedos.img, which I can boot into to have DOS environment. I need to use memdisk as kernel.

But I want to avoid adding an entry into boot loader.

I am sure, there must have a way to mount the image and chroot it or similar

SHW
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    What do you mean by VDI? Virtual desktop infrastructure? – Stephen Kitt Jul 21 '17 at 13:46
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    He probably means without using Virtualbox (VDI is the native VM disk format for VBox). – Austin Hemmelgarn Jul 21 '17 at 14:02
  • Have you looked at DosBox at all? I'm pretty sure that uses the userspace from FreeDOS, even if it doesn't technically use the core kernel. If you're willing to do some serious work just to avoid a disk image, you might be able to get it working with QEMU's virtual FAT filesystem support, but I'm not certain about whether that's possible or not – Austin Hemmelgarn Jul 21 '17 at 14:04

1 Answers1

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If you’re trying to run DOS programs under Linux, without using disk images, there are two fairly straightforward solutions.

  • DOSBox is a PC-and-DOS emulator, i.e. it provides both the hardware emulation and the BIOS/DOS software layer, so it doesn’t need FreeDOS or any other DOS. It’s designed for running games rather than applications though. It can use a specific DOS (including FreeDOS) if you want.

  • DOSEMU is a DOS-oriented PC emulator, which provides only the hardware emulation and some basic integration utilities; it needs a separate DOS. It is often used with FreeDOS, and the Debian package includes FreeDOS. It’s better at running applications than games, and development has mostly ceased on DOSEMU itself; there’s a DOSEMU2 fork which is under active development.

Both of these can emulate a DOS drive using a directory on your Linux file system, which makes it easy to share files between Linux and DOS. They can also use images when necessary, emulating floppy drives, CD-ROM drives or hard drives.

Stephen Kitt
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