DOSBox OUTdated, please use the WINE strategy

Support & Help Requests
1

Hi,

DOSBox is really outdated, although 074.3 is the latest stable version, the gap between 'stable' and 'svn' has become enormous.

The DOSBox diskspace requirements are laughable, the binaries are only ~4mb. Packaging should not be that complex (1 binary, 1 configuration). A bi-weekly update like WINE, should be more than sufficient. And if I look at WINE, I can see multiple (10+) packages, so this could be a nice addition for DOSBox.

I could bow and grovel to anyone willing to implement this, but since I have a weak knee :roll_eyes: and am way too cool for those ancient practices. I would hereby humbly request :innocent: to add the following packages to the repository:

  • dosbox-svn (to experience the latest goodies)
    ./configure
  • dosbox-svn-debug (since DOSBox bug reports are only accepted if also present in the svn)
    ./configure --enable-debug=heavy

Thanks mates!

EDIT: The official SVN repo:
https://sourceforge.net/p/dosbox/code-0/HEAD/tree/

2

If it helps, it seems there's a couple of Snaps that might be particularly useful here.

DOSBox Staging in particular? Might solve your version woes! :smiley:

3

Thanks Schykle :innocent: , but staging's debugger is broken.
And in order to report bugs you need the SVN.
I compile them myself on a regular basis, but these should be in UM, just like wine.

4

Well that was a bit unfair to everyone , I forgot to mention how to compile and install dosbox-svn :blush:

In order to compile dosbox-svn follow these steps:

  1. Install required packages
    sudo apt install autoconf subversion libncurses libncurses-dev libsdl1.2 libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsdl-net1.2 libsdl-net1.2-dev

  2. Download the source code
    svn checkout https://svn.code.sf.net/p/dosbox/code-0/dosbox/trunk /dev/shm/dosbox-svn
    cd /dev/shm/dosbox-svn

Compiling the default version:

  1. Compile steps:
    ./autogen.sh
    make clean
    ./configure
    make -j$(nproc)

  2. Install dosbox-svn
    sudo strip --strip-unneeded /dev/shm/dosbox-svn/src/dosbox -o /usr/local/bin/dosbox-svn

  3. Start dosbox-svn
    dosbox-svn

  4. Inside dosbox-svn, write a new config with:
    config -writeconf dosbox-svn.conf
    exit

  5. Redirect the mapperfile to dosbox-svn.map
    sed 's,^mapperfile.*,mapperfile=dosbox-svn.map,' $HOME/.dosbox/dosbox-svn.conf

  6. Then write an easy alias to "$HOME/.bash_aliases"
    echo "function dosbox-svn(){ /usr/local/bin/dosbox-svn -conf "$HOME/.dosbox/dosbox-svn.conf\" \${1:-.};}" >> "$HOME/.bash_aliases"

Compiling the debug version:

  1. Compile debug version:
    ./autogen.sh
    make clean
    ./configure --enable-debug=heavy
    make -j$(nproc)

  2. Install dosbox-svn-debug
    sudo strip --strip-unneeded /dev/shm/dosbox-svn/src/dosbox -o /usr/local/bin/dosbox-svn-debug

  3. Start dosbox-svn-debug
    dosbox-svn-debug

  4. Inside dosbox-svn, write a new config with:
    config -writeconf dosbox-svn-debug.conf
    exit

  5. Redirect the mapperfile to dosbox-svn-debug.map
    sed 's,^mapperfile.*,mapperfile=dosbox-svn-debug.map,' $HOME/.dosbox/dosbox-svn-debug.conf

  6. Then write an easy alias to "$HOME/.bash_aliases"
    echo "function dosbox-svn-debug(){ /usr/local/bin/dosbox-svn -conf \"$HOME/.dosbox/dosbox-svn-debug.conf\" \${1:-.};}" >> "$HOME/.bash_aliases"

Now you can start 'dosbox-svn' and 'dosbox-svn-debug' and it will automap the current directory, unless one is specified. (dont forget to start a new terminal)

This was all I could do to move this forward :innocent: and the reason why packaging would be much more convenient.

That should do it!

1 Like
5

With the use of some scripting, or motivated people,
It can be used like this: https://streamable.com/jw9c3n :smiley: