Re: DOSEMU/DOSBOX question

[Paul Lagasse pglagasse@xxxxxxxx]

Wally Bass wrote:
> So, the question would be, what are the corresponding semantics when
> one uses DOSBOS/DOSEMU. They could be file-system dependent -- on a
> Linux filesystem, for example, I can have both a README.TXT and
> readme.txt in one directory, so I very much doubt that I could get at
> both of them with something like XY in a DOSBOX (since XY
> intrinsically will ask for README.TXT by virtue of using DOS calls).
> With FAT or NTFS, it's impossible to have both a README and readme in
> the same directory, and I would think that this should be true under
> Linux as well.
> So, what happens with XY in a DOSBOX/under DOSEMU? Is it file system
> dependent? Can I access long filenames using short equivalents, as per
> Windows? With EXT2 or EXT3, or just with NTFS or FAT file systems? Is
> there anything that I can't access with XY, simply because of it's
> filename?
As a test, I just created three files of varying sizes called
readme.txt, Readme.txt, and README.TXT in Gedit (Ubuntu 7.10). With Xy4
running in Dosemu 1.4, I can see all the files in a directory listing
after issuing a dir command, but I can only access "readme.txt" (even if
I "ca README.TXT" or put the cursor on the line with README.TXT, move to
the command line, type "ca" and hit enter. I had noticed prior to this
that any file I saved in Xy4/Dosemu was converted to all lowercase, so
perhaps this indicates a certain consistency in how Dosemu handles Xy4's
requests for files.
The command dir will produce a directory listing that includes all
Linux's hidden files; the period that begins the hidden file (or
directory) name is not shown in the onscreen Xy4 directory listing.
Longer filenames are truncated - the first five characters are the same,
then there's a tilde, and then there are two characters that seem to
bear no relationship to the filename.

Thus,

.dosemurc becomes DOSEM~HU
.dosemurc~ becomes DOSEM~8Z
.recently-used.xbel becomes RECEN~YO.XBE

Linux files and directories without extensions show three underscores
PROFI~GU._ _ _ is ".profile" (I've added spaces to highlight the
underscores as separate characters.)
If I type "ca profi~gu._ _ _" on the command line and hit enter, I can
open the file. I have to include the tilde and three underscores to call
the file. The way Dosemu and XyWrite are set up, these files are in
"d:\" in Xy4/Dosemu, which is actually "/home/pgl/" in Linux.
One other thing I've noticed re the filesystem. I have Xy4 set to
automatically backup a file when I save it. Somehow the backup for a
certain file became associated with the root user instead of me (don't
ask me how; I must have done something). As a result, when I next edited
the file, I could not save the file directly, ie issue the command
"sa," because XyWrite couldn't overwrite the pre-existing
"filename.bak." Xy reported "Access denied." But I could save to a new
filename, then copy that file to the original filename; I later figured
out what was going on and deleted the backup while logged on as root.

Paul Lagassé

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