Mandrake and DOSEMU

[Paul Breeze paul.breeze@xxxxxxxx]

I found and downloaded dosemu-1.0.1-8mdk.i686.rpm and dos-freedos-1.0.1-8mdk.i586.rpm (I don't
remember where exactly but there are a number of rpm respositories - I searched for
dosemu+mandrake+rpm and they soon appeared) and installed both these using the k-package installer
programme. Then, tying either 'dos' from a console prompt or running the command 'dos -X' (the
latter is better, launching DOS in its own window) and freedos launched.

This is relatively limited, however, because you are running from a freedos hard disk image. In
order to proceed further you need to make your own bootable image. Fortunately this can be done
extremely easily because you can create a link to a directory on a DOS or Windows hard drive and it
will boot from there if you install the right programs. The best way to proceed is to find and
download Dosemu for Dummies which I found at www.jw-stumpel.nl/dosemu.html.  I followed the
instructions in this manual and it worked fine.

You will still need to find a vga font in order to generate a presentable screen in XY. I went to
the DOSEMU homepage and downloaded the stable version from there. If you simply unpack it - I did
this on my windows machine - and search through the directories it unpacks, you will find vga.pcf.
Dosemu for Dummies tells you where to place it. You then need to command mkfontdir (I think that
is correct) in order to register the font in a file called font.dir. You will also find ems.sys in
the dosemu package; you need to load this from config.sys to provide extended memory. After that,
you should be just about there.

Let me know if you run into any problems and I will see if I can help.

Paul Breeze