Hi, On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 9:07 PM Bret Johnson <bretj...@juno.com> wrote: > > I've been working on some updates to the ISLOADED program I sent to Jim a few > weeks ago. > Lately I have been specifically trying to add the detection of different > Virtual Machines (including VirtualBox) > to ISLOADED. It turns out that there are a BUNCH of VMs out there that I've > gotten to work with DOS:
Jerome's V8Power Tools will detect some VMs, IIRC: * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/v8power.html Although I never truly needed to know what VM, the naive ways to detect (from my limited experience) are a). check DOS version, b). check VESA version string, c). check BIOS string. (You could also check the cpu, but that's messy. DOSBox is a "fast 486" DX2 by default, IIRC.) Actually, I take that back, several pieces of software check for "version 7" and behave differently, which sometimes fails. Like I said, it's naive and imperfect. (Also some like DR-DOS 7.03 report "IBM DOS 6" for compatibility and need their own incompatible version check [int 21h, "DR"] just to know for sure.) > DOSBox "Only for games". (Maxes out at 64 MB RAM, meh. "Slow Pentium" is best it can emulate, IIRC.) > DOSBox-X It's quite interesting (esp. running atop FreeDOS itself). But I haven't tested it too heavily. > DOSEmu / DOSEmu2 Is this available in any repos? I'm very naive. Didn't the original used to be in "multiverse"? I'm not sure it's there anymore. I still haven't tried DOSEMU2 yet, but it uses its own modified FDPP (DOS) kernel, right? It has a PPA or whatever, not sure. (This does supposedly support VT-X now. They used to support other methods, but I'm not sure if that's still supported. Also, they might be 64-bit host only, not sure.) > Hyper-V So Hyper-V does actually support DOS? From what I read (years ago), I wasn't sure. (Back then it was 64-bit Pro VT-X only.) This is also what WSL2 supposedly uses behind the scenes. > JPC The Java one?? > KVM This is just QEMU using VT-X, right? > Parallels Mac? > QEMU I usually just used Stefan Weil's Windows binaries from his site. (I don't remember what version I have installed, probably 6.x on Win7. Latest version of his seems to be 7.1.0.) > vDOS Wengier did some work on VDOSPlus, I thought (for apps, not games, with LFNs and better printing support). > VirtualBox Even VirtualBox dropped 32-bit hosts and non-VT-X cpus a few years ago. (They use OpenWatcom to compile the BIOS.) > There are also a few other VMs out there that I'm not sure will run DOS (the > documentation is unclear > and I haven't been able to install or test them for various reasons): > > BHyve This was created for FreeBSD and first released in 10.0, IIRC. It requires a 2010 Intel (or newer) with VT-X (and EPT). IIRC, they "mostly" wanted to run other versions of BSD, but there was partial effort to get other OSes (even with a BIOS) running. Honestly, I never tried it, but it sounded interesting. (Wasn't the Mac port called xhyve?) * https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve * https://bhyve.org/ Apparently it can also run x64 Windows via UEFI. (sysutils/grub2-bhyve is used for running some other *nixes.) > I know the FreeDOS web site also lists several VMs (some of the same ones > I've listed above, > plus JSLinux which is similar to JPC). Not sure, JSLinux is Javascript while (IIRC) JPC Is Java. There used to also be JDOSBox in Java and one guy (I forget) hosts JSDOSBox (Javascript) with demos on his site. There's also 8-Bit Workshop's website, but I don't know what that uses. (There's a lot of fragmentation and old versions). There were also Joris' Retro (Java) and 8086tiny (in C, with various forks). > At least some of the VMs have a "built-in" DOS, often based on some version > of FreeDOS (for example, VPC and DOSEmu). VPC uses FreeDOS?? Not sure. DOSEMU used to allow MS- or DR- or FD-, but I had weakly thought DOSEMU2 required its own FreeDOS fork called FDPP. > Anyway, I'm wondering how "involved" FreeDOS should be in the VM world > (I think in today's world the vast majority of users install DOS under a VM > rather than on real hardware, > though I personally do both). Yes, I agree that VMs are more common for FreeDOS users nowadays, especially with no more BIOS or CSM on new machines. > How involved in testing / recommending applications (including games) > for compatibility should FreeDOS actually be, particularly when a VM is > involved? I would say games are low priority (but still vaguely important) and thus harder to get working. My main interest is in getting old utils and compilers to run. Graphics (and especially sound) are a whole other ball of wax. > Where/how should the results be documented (or if there even should be a > central repository)? You mean like DOSBox's compatibility list? Or WINE? Does WINE still use DOSBox itself? _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
