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DOSBox-X for Mageia Linux

DOSBox-X is a DOS emulator that provides the most flexibility possible for  DOS emulator as it can not only run the DOS games that DOSBox can run, but the Win3.1, Win9X and WinME operating systems. DOSBox-X is available for Mageia8 in a flatpak repository, something new to Mageia, so we'll cover the installation of DOSBox-X via this method, then move on to configuring a working DOSBox-X installation.

1. Install flatpak using urpmi.

$ sudo urpmi flatpak

On the test system, this installed about 26MB of additional applications.

Install the flatpak repositories.

$ sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Locate the DOSBox-X file in the repo using the search function.

$ flatpak search dosbox-x

Which returns, in part,

Name             Application ID                         Version
DOSBox-X       com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X         0.83.19

To install this package for all users (it can also be installed for a single user),

$ sudo flatpak install com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X

Which returns, in part

Looking for matches…
Found similar ref(s) for ‘com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system).
Use this remote? [Y/n]: y
Required runtime for com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X/x86_64/stable (runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08) found in remote flathub
Do you want to install it? [Y/n]: y

com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X permissions:
    ipc     network     pulseaudio     x11    devices    file access [1]

    [1] home


        ID                                             Branch            Op           Remote            Download
 1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default                21.08
 2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.Locale                      21.08 
 3.     org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264                 2.0 
 4.     org.freedesktop.Platform                                21.08 
 5.     com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X                               stable   
 
Proceed with these changes to the system installation? [Y/n]: 

The installer will announce that it has completed the installation.

You can find more information about using flatpak at their homepage.

2. Run DOSBox-X from flatpak

$ flatpak run com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X 




3. Configure DOSBox-X

The default configuration file is found at ~.dosbox/ and named dosbox-0.74.conf. It is well commented and provides a set of sane defaults. Additional details can be found at the DOSBox Wiki. 

There is no GUI for two more important areas: Where your DOS "drives" are located and what the contents of the autoexec.bat file are to be (which include the "drive" mounting instructions), which cab be done with the DOSBox-X Drop-Down Menus.

Locally, a DOSBox directory with sub-folders C, D and E were created for the local user. The menu under Drive was used to select the directories as "drives" and the system state was saved. Consult the DOSBox-X wiki for configuration details which are beyond the scope of this article.

RESOURCES

DOSBox-X in other package formats









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