Someone emailed me to ask how I install FreeDOS using QEMU. They also asked about the warning that QEMU emits when you use "img" file format, so my reply mentions that. I wanted to share a copy of my reply in case anyone else here uses QEMU:
>> This is a very timely question, because I'm about to reinstall FreeDOS this morning, so I'll copy/paste what I do into this email as a way to show you how I do it. We make a new test release every month with the latest updates so developers can test against it, and today is October 1 - time to test the "T2410" release (T="Test" 24="2024" 10="October"). First, you're right; if you use the "img" format for a virtual disk image, QEMU will give you a warning. It's not an error, and it's okay to ignore it *if you created the img file*, but the warning is there because "img" just means a disk image from something, and QEMU may sometimes misinterpret the disk "geometry" if it has to guess. So these days, I use the "qcow2" image format, which is actually a little faster, but also avoids the warning that "img" can give you. 1. Here's how I create a 500MB virtual disk image for my "C:" drive that I'll use to install FreeDOS onto. Since I'm going to install the monthly test release, I'll call it 2410.qcow2: $ *qemu-img create -f qcow2 2410.qcow2 500M* Formatting '2410.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 cluster_size=65536 extended_l2=off compression_type=zlib size=524288000 lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16 2. And now to boot the LiveCD so I can install FreeDOS on it. Since this is just an initial install, I don't need to set up other things like sound support, so it's just my "C:" drive and the LiveCD: $ *qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -cdrom T2410/T2410LIVE.iso -hda 2410.qcow2 -boot order=d* Since I test a new version every month, my T2410 test release is in the T2410 directory. So that's why that path is there. Other options include: -enable-kvm to use the Linux KVM kernel virtual machine feature -m 32 to configure the virtual machine with 32MB of memory -boot oder=d to always boot from the LiveCD (the "D:" drive) And the great thing is: I didn't get any errors or warnings by running QEMU this way. It launched fine. 3. Then I install FreeDOS as usual. When I'm done, I shut down the virtual machine using the shutdown command in FreeDOS. 4. To boot FreeDOS after that, I use a more complicated command line: $ *qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -rtc base=localtime -audiodev pa,id=snd -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd -device sb16,audiodev=snd -device adlib,audiodev=snd -hda 2410.qcow2 -hdb data.qcow2 -cdrom T2410/T2410BNS.iso -boot menu=on* The extra options are: -rtc base=localtime to set the virtual machine's real time clock to use my Linux system's local time -audiodev pa,id=*snd* to use PulseAudio on Linux for sound; I can refer to that setup later as "snd" -machine pcspk-audiodev=*snd* to add a PC speaker to the virtual machine, using the "snd" that I set up (above) -device sb16,audiodev=*snd* to add a SoundBlaster16 sound card to the virtual machine, using "snd" -device adlib,audiodev=*snd* to add an AdLib digital music card to the virtual machine, using "snd" -hda and -hdb to add the first and second hard disks (I keep all my user data on data.qcow2, so I don't have to back it up and restore every time I reinstall a new FreeDOS monthly test release) -cdrom T2410/T2410BNS.iso to use the BonusCD (so I can install other programs from there) -boot menu=on to set up a BIOS boot menu, for the rare cases I want to select a different boot option (like when I'm running with LiveCD and want to boot from the CD again) If that looks like a lot, it is. But that's how QEMU works; you configure it entirely on the command line. I saved that big command line in a Bash script called qemu and just run that whenever I want to boot FreeDOS. I hope that helps! Jim
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