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List:       freedos-user
Subject:    Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS on a compute stick
From:       Rugxulo <rugxulo () gmail ! com>
Date:       2016-01-09 4:19:07
Message-ID: CAA-ihx9-J0DM7h81YdR39N2gAWYhhnoTc5Q1BFbfSG8maaCYvA () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hi,

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 4:52 AM, Xavier Dury <kalgon@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for all the feedback! :-)
> 
> As I said before, DOSBox is not an option to me as I have already done it before on \
> my PC and my RPi (there is nothing hard/challenging in installing DOSBox on windows \
> or linux)... and don't get me wrong: I have absolutely nothing against emulators. \
> It's just that I work everyday with linux/windows, hypervisors, containers, (java) \
> VMs.

If you work every day with those, then do you know about VT-X?
"Unrestricted guest mode execution"? Hyper-V?

> I wanted to try something different in my free time and somehow go back to my roots \
> (DOS). 
> I initially wanted to run rpix86 on a RPi2 for its tiny form factor but it can only \
> emulate a 486@20Mhz which is a bit slow for the last DOS games like Quake, DN3D, \
> Magic Carpet, Hi-Octane...

Yes, it's slow, especially if you choose such a (relatively) low-end
host cpu. That can barely be helped.
You could try some unofficial forks of DOSBox, but I don't know of any
perfect solution to speeding it
up on a RPi2.

Native x86 is fast, but it lacks sound. Even under DOSEMU, sound
doesn't always work.
(Although I played the heck out of Hexen2 [Hammer of Thyrion] under
DOSEMU in recent years, which is Quake-based.)

Most people would tell you to use a modern source port (e.g. Doom,
Quake, Duke Nukem 3D) compiled for Windows or Linux.
Seriously, if at all possible, the consensus is not to run under DOS
at all, if the .EXE can be recompiled. Heck, even Tyrian
was ported to modern systems.

> So I thought, why not use a recent x86 as DOS was intended to be run on instead of \
> an ARM one.

Sound is the big problem. But if you can live without that, then
you're "probably" okay (more or less).

> I knew beforehand that it was going to be a challenge as I had so many questions
> (how does DOS behave with USB keyboard and mouse,

Depends on the built-in BIOS emulation (if any) and drivers.

> UEFI,

Depends on if CSM is available.

> SATA,

None.

> sound chips?)

Almost none.

> but that's where the fun is.

Depends on your level of patience and skill, but some things are
(almost) impossible.

> And I chose FreeDOS over MS-DOS because I had better hope it could handle the last \
> x86 evolutions (the last version is only 4 years old while the last MS-DOS came \
> with windows 98).

Nope, FreeDOS doesn't have extra cpu or driver support at all. And
there are no companies contributing in recent years to DOS at all.
There is no upstream interest in DOS as anything but bare bones (i.e.
minimal bootup to do low-level recovery or BIOS flashing).
DOS is not supported nor recommended by any big companies anymore.
Even hobbyist projects have mostly dropped it,
esp. once NTVDM got buggier and buggier (after XP) and AMD64 became
mainstream (no V86 mode).

> So, that's why I wanted to know if someone already did it:
> 
> - If yes then what are the difficulties?
> - If no then why?
> - Is it because nobody thought about doing that before? (I hardly doubt it)
> - Is it because it's not possible anymore?
> - Then, at what point in the x86 evolution have we lost the capability to run DOS \
> (which ruled that platform for years)?

If you have a BIOS, you can run DOS. But 99% of the time, things like
sound don't work. And all the other stuff (power management,
multiple cores) is almost totally ignored or broken. There are no huge
modern enhancements to FreeDOS. If you're expecting
FreeBSD levels of compatibility with ultra-modern hardware, you're
sorely mistaken (sadly).

> Now that I know that current sound chips aren't SB compatible at all, this is a \
> blocking issue. 
> The 2 options I got left are indeed use DOSBox on linux (and launch DOSBox on boot \
> to have something that looks like an old DOS computer) or dig up my old \
> Pentium@166Mhz from the basement (but its size and noise are not so convenient and \
> won't please my wife :-) ). 
> Once again, thank you for the great discussion and information.

I almost forgot that ReactOS has been heavily working on their own
NTVDM, and I just found a video of them playing Duke
Nukem 3D in (unreleased) 0.4 previews. So it's not all hopeless, but
that depends on whether you find that acceptable
or if you still insist on using exactly "DOS only" or not.

P.S. Did you hear about Retro City Rampage DX?

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