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Author Topic: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?  (Read 23365 times)

Offline amgh

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Dear Tiny Core veterans,

I've been using Kubuntu for some time now, but not very familiar with Linux in general, and especially not with Tiny Core.

By Microcore, I understand that it's the "Core" iso that is listed in the Download page? (9MB+)

I came from the MS-DOS background, and was interested in the minimalist Tiny Core, designed to load only Dosbox and it's dependencies on boot up. I will be using it as a portable DOS on USB, mainly for playing DOS games, on any machine.

I have tried to get info on Dosbox installation in Tiny Core, but I'm not able to get the complete guide.

For one, I have tried downloading the Dosbox.tcz file and it's dependencies and pasted into the tce/optional/ folder. But I'm not able to install it.

Is this basic Core package sufficient to install Dosbox or do I need to download more stuff? (I have even downloaded the sdl.tcz, libmad.tcz, and a few other tcz files listed by a user in this forum)

I will be really grateful if you can guide me in installing Dosbox in this Core.

Thank you.

Offline Rich

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2015, 10:06:42 PM »
Hi amgh
You should start by going to:
http://tinycorelinux.net/book.html
Download and read the book to get some insight on how Tinycore works. It's an easy read and well worth your time.
Since you are looking to run just run DOS programs, why not just run DOS? Or maybe this would be of interest:
http://www.freedos.org/

Offline amgh

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2015, 11:03:35 PM »
Thank you for the the directions.

I do have real 486 and Pentium machines as part of my vintage hobby.

My interest in Tiny Core and Dosbox, is the ability to run DOS games from a USB stick, independent of installation of Dosbox in a more heavy OS environment. And the ability to use it on any new machines by just plugging the USB and booting, and with the advantage of the Dosbox's sound and graphics emulation for the Dos games available, independent of the new machines' hardware.

I have downloaded the pdf book and reading it. And I'm not sure I can understand how to install Dosbox in the basic Core package. And I couldn't find the Dosbox package in the latest repository (tried from the CorePlus package).

Thank you again.

Online Juanito

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2015, 11:38:29 PM »
There is a dosbox extension in the 4.x repo, but it will almost certainly need recompiling for tc-6.x

Offline amgh

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2015, 12:49:15 AM »
Yes, I searched the mirror for 4.x repository and found the dosbox.tcz files. Also downloaded the other files - SDL.tcz, sdl-sound.tcz, libogg.tcz, libvorbis.tcz, libmad.tcz, alsa.tcz, etc.

I used the core2usb.exe file to install core-current.ISO to the USB drive from windows. I then copied the above files to the tce\optional folder from within windows.

I have a feeling I'm doing something wrong here, since when I run the tce-run command, it displays that it can't run because dosbox.tcz is not found in the tcedir directory.

Offline CentralWare

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2015, 03:24:37 AM »
@amgh:

It sounds as though your USB stick itself is doing well if you're able to boot to TC with it, so for the moment I'm going to assume core itself is installed correctly.  The instructions are intended for an existing device, so we don't want to reformat, etc.

1) Run: tce-load -wi e2fsprogs so we can give the USB device a drive label
Go to /mnt and locate your usb/boot drive (I'll assume sda1 here for this post)
2) Run: e2label /dev/sda1 tinycore to set the device's label to "tinycore"
Go to /mnt/sda1/tce/boot/extlinux and edit extlinux.conf (sudo vi extlinux.conf)
On the APPEND line, look to see if there's a boot code starting with tce= which I'm guessing there is not.  If not, add tce=LABEL=tinycore at the end of that line.

If you're not familiar with "vi", press the letter "a" to start editing the file, then navigate to where you want to make changes using the arrow keys.  Press <ctrl>+c to stop editing, and type in :wq to save (write) and quit.

Once finished, run: sync (just for sake of safety to flush the changes to the USB drive) followed by sudo reboot to reboot the machine.

Once the machine reboots, you should now have a persistent setup so that it remembers your installed extensions.  Repeat the installation for dosbox and the other dependencies you listed.  The next time you reboot you should find they're still loaded on the USB device.

Doing things in this fashion will also prevent you from having to use tce-run completely.  You should now be able to run dosbox from the command line (directly.)

EDIT: It just dawned on me you noted using Windows to build the USB stick.  I don't recall whether core2usb uses EXT or DOS as the format.  If EXT, you're in good shape with the instructions above.  If DOS, use dosfstools in Step 1 and dosfslabel in Step 2.

A preferred (and much more simplistic) method would be:
1) Download TinyCore-current.iso from
http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/x86/release/TinyCore-4.7.7.iso
2) Burn the ISO to CD (from Windows)
3) Boot the CD (you should end up in X-Windows)
4) Click on the TC-Install icon at the far bottom-right
5) Choose USB install and select the usb pen drive (should be listed as removable - only 1 should be!)
6) Follow the prompts and select EXT2 as the format and NONE to installing extensions.
Once finished, reboot and run tce-load again with your dosbox extensions and dependencies.  Every time you reboot thereafter, dosbox and such will be found on your stick.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2015, 03:40:27 AM by centralware »
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Online Juanito

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2015, 03:33:14 AM »
Yes, I searched the mirror for 4.x repository and found the dosbox.tcz files. Also downloaded the other files - SDL.tcz, sdl-sound.tcz, libogg.tcz, libvorbis.tcz, libmad.tcz, alsa.tcz, etc.
to test dosbox in tc-6.x, you will also need the libpng12 extension

Quote
I have a feeling I'm doing something wrong here, since when I run the tce-run command, it displays that it can't run because dosbox.tcz is not found in the tcedir directory.
Do you mean the "tce-load -i" command?

Offline curaga

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2015, 03:33:24 AM »
I'll add that it's likely a slow usb stick, and so requires the waitusb bootcode.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Online Juanito

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2015, 03:45:26 AM »
..and the extension could be one quarter of the size by stripping the debug symbols from dosbox  :)

Online Juanito

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2015, 04:17:29 AM »
dosbox copied to tc-6.x repo

Offline amgh

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2015, 07:51:11 AM »
@centralware :

Thank you for the detailed explanations.

In your edited post, I assume you mean to download the TinyCorePlus.iso intead of the TinyCoreCurrent.iso file, since don't see the "install" icon in the TinyCoreCurrent.iso distribution.

I'm trying it now.

@Juanito:

Thank you for the dosbox update in the 6.x repo.

Offline CentralWare

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #11 on: January 25, 2015, 08:58:25 AM »
amgh@: Sorry, you are correct.  You'll have to forgive me, I haven't booted a CD/ISO in ages!  Had I caught my mistake before you downloaded Plus I would have said to just type the following under TinyCore-current:

tce-load -wi Xvesa Xprogs flwm_topside wbar tc-install
(Xvesa/Xprogs/flwm/wbar should already be loaded if using Tiny...  but even Core-current applies to the same line above)  Once finished, just launch the desktop by typing startx
This likely would have saved you about a 60mb download of Plus...  but even that's hardly a vacation unless you're on dial-up! :)

Good luck and keep us posted on the DosBox venture!

~TJ~
Over 90% of all computer problems can be traced back to the interface between the keyboard and the chair

Offline amgh

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2015, 10:44:50 PM »
Hi again!

I have downloaded the CorePlus and have installed into my USB drive as mentioned above in ext2 format.

I then booted to Kubuntu and copied all the dosbox.tcz and it's dependencies into the /etc/sysconfig/tcedir/optional directory.

When I run tce-run dosbox.tcz, I now get the following error message :

"error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_sound-1.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

I have the following files in the optional directory :

alsa.tcz
alsa.tcz.dep
alsa.tcz.info
alsa.tcz.list
alsa.tcz.md5.txt
dosbox.tcz
dosbox.tcz.dep
dosbox.tcz.info
dosbox.tcz.list
dosbox.tcz.md5.txt
libasound.tcz
libasound.tcz.info
libasound.tcz.list
libasound.tcz.md5.txt
libmad.tcz
libmad.tcz.info
libmad.tcz.list
libmad.tcz.md5.txt
libogg.tcz
libogg.tcz.info
libogg.tcz.list
libogg.tcz.md5.txt
libvorbis.tcz
libvorbis.tcz.dep
libvorbis.tcz.info
libvorbis.tcz.list
libvorbis.tcz.md5.txt
sdl-sound-dev.tcz
sdl-sound-dev.tcz.dep
sdl-sound-dev.tcz.info
sdl-sound-dev.tcz.list
sdl-sound-dev.tcz.md5.txt
sdl-sound.tcz
sdl-sound.tcz.info
sdl-sound.tcz.list
sdl-sound.tcz.md5.txt
SDL.tcz
SDL.tcz.dep
SDL.tcz.info
SDL.tcz.list
SDL.tcz.md5.txt
tc-install.tcz
tc-install.tcz.dep
tc-install.tcz.info
tc-install.tcz.list
tc-install.tcz.md5.txt

Thanks for any help.

Offline curaga

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #13 on: January 26, 2015, 01:57:48 AM »
Does dosbox.tcz.dep contain sdl-sound.tcz?
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Online Juanito

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Re: How to install Dosbox into Microcore for a Pseudo-vintage DOS machine?
« Reply #14 on: January 26, 2015, 02:51:39 AM »
I added sdl-sound as a dep when I copied dosbox to the 6.x repo.

@admh - you mention "tce-run dosbox.tcz", but did you mean "tce-load -i dosbox"?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2015, 04:13:00 AM by Juanito »