Ok, John and others who are interested, but this is just how i got it to work not necessarily the _best_ way to do it. By the way, you can do a systemwide install with dosemu-1.1.3 though I haven't yet; from the dosemu-1.1.3 directory, type ./system_wide install -help" to find out all the info you need to include. If you do it this way, i think you just need the dosemu-freedos.bin.tgz downloaded; you don't need the 1.0.2 version (or a former version( of dosemu. Repost of message to John: >From chomiak@chartermi.net Sun Mar 24 00:44:03 2002 Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 23:37:13 -0600 (CST) From: Cheryl Homiak <chomiak@chartermi.net> To: John J. Boyer <director@chpi.org> Subject: Re: Dosemu Hi John! Ok, first of all, you are going to need some more packages from dosemu.org. These should be under the dosemu directory. First, you need the dosemu-1.0.2-bin.tgz, because apparently the way to put in this development version is to move some files from the 1.1.3 directory 9after you've compiled it) to the old tree. You also need to download dosemu-freedos-bin.tgz from the same place. both of these are ready-mae binaries; no compiling. As for system-wide installation, the 1.0.2 will automatically be user-specific 9lives in your home directory) and when I tried "make install" with the 1.3.1 I got a message saying there was no provision for system-wide, and that's when it told me what files to insert in the old dosemu tree. But somebodyon the speakup list said he did a systemwide, so I have a note in to him to ask how he did it. Will let you know while he answers. Meanwhile, you could get started with the private one. (I know you aren't going to use freedos; I hate freedos, but you have to initially put it in or this version will complain and refuse to work. The debian version is system wide by default and doesn't even come with freedos; you either put in your own system or go download freedos yourself. Once you have all three of these files downloaded, the 1.3.1, the 1.0.2 and the freedos, create a directory in your home directory called mydos. Unpack first the dosemu-freedos and then the dosemu-1.0.2 (tar zxf) inside the mydos directory. This creates a dosemu directory under mydos; you can explore and see what all is in there. Next, unpack the 1.1.3 of dosemu, just in your home directory, not inside mydos. By the way, do all of this stuff as yourself not as root, since it isn't system-wide. Then do "make" from inside the dosemu-1.1.3 directory that is created when you unpack. If you get stopped with any errors, it means you are probably missing a package and have to go download it; I had to go get flex because the 'lex" command wasn't found. fortunately, the debian site lets you search for contents of packages, so I put in lex and was able to find out what the package was. when the make is successfully completed, copy the following files from the bin directory into mydos/dosemu/bin dosemu.bin and dosdebug. Go back into your dosemu directory and into the conf directory. You will need to edit dosemu.conf there. there are some values already in there for dpmi and memory; you could start with those and then change them if you think it is necessary. You will see a line that starts with $emusys + "" and I put emu within the quotes. The next line says $emubat = and i put emb inside the quotes. I did this so i could modify my config.sys file in my real dos directory and call the modification config.emu and do the same with the autoexec.bat and call it autoexec.emb and not mess up my actual config.sys and autoexec.bat. Jus temember that if you end up using the config.sys in mydos/dosemu/freedos you also should change that extention. A bit further down, I changed the "speaker" line to "emulated" instead of "" but I don't know for sure that this is necessary. The hdimage line right now has 'freedos" within the quotes; you need to add in the name you will use for the link to your dos partition; it's better to make a link than to use the raw partition name. I have "msdos". whichever of these two you have first, freedos and msdos, will come up as C: and the other will be a D drive. I wanted msdos as the c drive of course, but it took me a while to get things set up right, so I started out with freedos and C: and then switched them when I had things squared away. You just need a space between the two labels on the hdimage line, no comma. Under the com lines, you only need to put something in the ones you want to use; the ones with just "" will be ignored. so in the com2 line, put /dev/ttyS1 within the quotes. I also commented out all the mouse lines, but don't think this is actually necessary. In case you sometimes want to use pcdisk from dosemu, or the braillelite with flipper, you could go ahead and put /dev/ttyS0 in the com1 line but then comment it out. Then it would only take seconds to go in and uncomment the line before going into dosemu if you were going to need that com port to go to dosemu. After modifying your dosemu.conf, you need to modify your config.sys and autoexec.bat but with whatever extensions you are using in the dosemu.conf. I actually think it is ok to edit in emacs provided you have your real DOS partition mounted as -t msdos, as files allways come up in emacs being identified as dos. i've had no problem doing that. You also can edit these files from within your own DOS by rebooting into dos/windows, or you can do editing after starting dosemu if it will go ahead and start. Only if you end up loading freedos instead of your own dos, be ware; I never did figure out how to save and exit with that editor. The normal dos editor is interesting too; to get into the menus you can't just press alt; you have to hold down alt and hit for instance "f" for files. then I did a 456-chord with my braillelite that got me to the place that showed me which menu line I was on. From there you up and down arrow, watching that line. I fiddled with things to ffigure out what was essential to include in my config.emu and autoexec.emb from the config.sys and autoexec.bat you will find in freedos. I don't know that I have it perfect yet, but I'll send you mine as attachments (not included in list post) so you at least get the idea. Dosemu has its own memory manager, so it doesn't need and won't load himem and emm386. If you think you may be using freedos as c: at first, copy your config.emu and autoexec.emu and io.sys and msdos.sys and command.com into the freedos directory. Also, delete kernel.sys or better yet rename it in case you need it later. Only this is kind of a pain, because then you have to change your paths for your own dos stuff to d:, so if you can skip having to do this, all the better. By the way, I did all my modifications on my .emu and .emb file by working on the file in one console while looking at the other (my original or the freedos file) in the other console; I also used cut-and-paste, and of course you can also put both files in emacs and either use a divided window or switch buffers and use the yanking feature. So lots of options for a thankless task. Always a good idea to backup your autoexec.bat and config.sys, and the freedos config.sys, by another name in case you accidentally edit the wrong one or something else happens. There are a couple of other ways to do this, and either or both mya be better than my method; this is what i was able to figure out and it eventually worked. I understand that you can also make a hdimage file from your own dos and put that in dosemu or in freedos itself--not sure. Or you might be able to just modify the freedos directory itself and not have to have an "msdos" and "freedos" drive. You'll have to do your own exploring for these options. For the method i am propounding, you will need to have your dos partition mounted and do a symlink: ln -s /dos 9that's where i have mounted my dos partition in /etc/fstab or you can mount it by hand; just make sure it is mounted as a dos partition) /home/jboyer/mydos/dosemu/msdos (r whatever name you gave it in the hdimage line of your dosemu.conf. Then when you go into dosemu, you do it with your dos partion still mounted; if you had used /dev/hda2 (or whatever partition) in the hdimage line, you would have to go in with the partition unmounted, and it is my understanding you could lose more data in a crash by using the raw partition name. I also copied most of the files from /home/chomiak/mydos/dosemu/freedos/dosemu into my real dos root partition, because some of those files are needed, such as ems.sys for the config.emu and that way you don't have to use unnecessary paths to your freedos drive once you have things mostly working from your own dos drive. Make sure the emuexit.com is accessable to you one way or another, because "exitemu" is the only graceful way to exit dosemu. If you do get hung somewhere in dosemu, the way to kill it 9as you rather than root sice this isn't systemwide) is to type killall dosemu.bin I know this is a lot of info, and i've tried to be organized about presenting it. but it is a lot, and what I got to work may not necessarily be best practice or the method you decide to follow. By the way, the docs are not very good in my oppinion. the reason is that they are a jumble, for the most part, of old instructions kind of updated; somebody hasn't taken the time to start from the beginning and modify everything for the current packages. Have fun; hope i didn't forget to tell you anything important!