Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-22 Thread Rugxulo 
Hi,

On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 2:51 PM, Ralf Quint  wrote:
>
> On 6/22/2017 12:39 PM, Santiago Almenara wrote:
>
> Thanki you Ruxgulo,
>
>> "-m 64" is fairly low. I usually leave it default (unless needing
>> more), which is "-m 128". But even that is fairly low. Hey, you're
>> already on x64, give it 512 MB!   ;-)
>
> Why would I want more than 32 o 64m for a DOS program?? :D
> Is there any current or past program that uses that amount of RAM??

32 MB is way too low. (Vista's NTVDM, anyone?)

DOSBox (emulator) caps at 64 MB (max, only 16 MB by default) because of
buggy games, I think, not because nobody else uses more.

XMSv3 and 32-bit DPMI both are intended to use more than that. Why even
have specs and drivers if no one uses more? 4 GB should be enough for
anyone!   ;-)

> You never know when you are using DJGPP  or the like to write DOS
programs... :-P

Yes, DJGPP stuff can easily use tons of MB of RAM, e.g. GCC (or G++) with
heavy optimizations. 7-Zip (or p7zip) can optionally use huge dictionary
sizes, too.

I don't know the details of how the VMs allocate their guest memory, so I
don't know if it will grab it all at once or not. But if you can afford it,
I recommend not minimizing the guest RAM.

Also, don't forget that you can use a large RAM disk. I routinely use a 200
MB RAM disk when running FreeDOS natively, so that's in addition to
whatever else I'm running. RAM is much faster than hard disk (or floppy or
...).

Honestly, I would say anything less than 512 MB is too little, but on
average you probably don't need that much. Like I said, default is 128, so
stick with that if unsure.
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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-22 Thread Ralf Quint 
On 6/22/2017 12:39 PM, Santiago Almenara wrote:
> Thanki you Ruxgulo,
>  
>
> "-m 64" is fairly low. I usually leave it default (unless needing
> more), which is "-m 128". But even that is fairly low. Hey, you're
> already on x64, give it 512 MB!   ;-)
>
>
> Why would I want more than 32 o 64m for a DOS program?? :D
> Is there any current or past program that uses that amount of RAM?? 
You never know when you are using DJGPP  or the like to write DOS
programs... :-P

Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-22 Thread Santiago Almenara 
Thank you Jim, tonight I'll try your options


2017-06-22 7:12 GMT-05:00 Jim Hall :

> > On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:34 AM, Santiago Almenara 
> wrote:
> [..]
> >> I'd like to ask what are the options you usually use in Qemu.
> >>
> >> My options are:
> >>
> >> qemu-system.i386 -localtime -hda freedos.img -m 64 -soundhw
> sb16,adlib,pcspk
> >>
> >> Some thoughts:
> >>
> >> - Are any additional options I should use for DOS??
> >> - My system is a Linux 64-bits, but I am not sure if I should use
> either qemu-system-i386 or qemu-system-x64.
>
> On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> > I use QEMU to boot FreeDOS on my Linux system at home.
> [..]
> > I'll share the options I use later tonight or tomorrow, when I can
> > boot my home system. I have a script to launch it the same way every
> > time. I don't use pcspk, but the rest of the options look similar.
>
>
> These are my options. To make them easier to read, I'll split them up
> into groups:
>
>
> For the basic VM: 32MB memory, US keyboard, local time. Fill in the
> blanks for your hard drive image and your CDROM image.
>
> -m 32 -k en-us -rtc base=localtime -hda ___ -cdrom ___ -boot order=cd
>
>
> ..or if I'm installing FreeDOS from the CDROM media:
>
> .. -boot order=dc
>
>
> For the network: NE2000 ISA card (haven't tested yet though)
>
> -device ne2k_isa
>
>
> For sound: SoundBlaster16 with Adlib support
>
> -soundhw sb16,adlib
>
>
> For video: standard Cirrus VGA
>
> -device cirrus-vga
>
>
> For display: use SDL
>
> -display sdl
>
>
>
> Some of these options may be extraneous (might be set by default) but
> I figured I should set them anyway so I knew what the values are.
>
>
> I create my hard drive image as 200MB, using this command line:
>
> qemu-img create ___ 200M
>
> Jim
>
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-22 Thread Jim Hall 
> On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:34 AM, Santiago Almenara  
> wrote:
[..]
>> I'd like to ask what are the options you usually use in Qemu.
>>
>> My options are:
>>
>> qemu-system.i386 -localtime -hda freedos.img -m 64 -soundhw sb16,adlib,pcspk
>>
>> Some thoughts:
>>
>> - Are any additional options I should use for DOS??
>> - My system is a Linux 64-bits, but I am not sure if I should use either 
>> qemu-system-i386 or qemu-system-x64.

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> I use QEMU to boot FreeDOS on my Linux system at home.
[..]
> I'll share the options I use later tonight or tomorrow, when I can
> boot my home system. I have a script to launch it the same way every
> time. I don't use pcspk, but the rest of the options look similar.


These are my options. To make them easier to read, I'll split them up
into groups:


For the basic VM: 32MB memory, US keyboard, local time. Fill in the
blanks for your hard drive image and your CDROM image.

-m 32 -k en-us -rtc base=localtime -hda ___ -cdrom ___ -boot order=cd


..or if I'm installing FreeDOS from the CDROM media:

.. -boot order=dc


For the network: NE2000 ISA card (haven't tested yet though)

-device ne2k_isa


For sound: SoundBlaster16 with Adlib support

-soundhw sb16,adlib


For video: standard Cirrus VGA

-device cirrus-vga


For display: use SDL

-display sdl



Some of these options may be extraneous (might be set by default) but
I figured I should set them anyway so I knew what the values are.


I create my hard drive image as 200MB, using this command line:

qemu-img create ___ 200M

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-21 Thread Rugxulo 
Hi,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:34 AM, Santiago Almenara  wrote:
>
> I have re-discovered Qemu after using Virtualbox for FreeDOS for a couple of
> years. Since qemu is mostly for command-line use (I don't use any laucher
> yet)
>
> I'd like to ask what are the options you usually use in Qemu.
>
> My options are:
>
> qemu-system.i386 -localtime -hda freedos.img -m 64 -soundhw sb16,adlib,pcspk

I'm not sure sound emulation is very stable. I'd rather recommend
DOSBox for that.

"-m 64" is fairly low. I usually leave it default (unless needing
more), which is "-m 128". But even that is fairly low. Hey, you're
already on x64, give it 512 MB!   ;-)

> Some thoughts:
>
> - Are any additional options I should use for DOS??

"-net nic,model=pcnet -net user" is good if you already have (included
in FD 1.2) PCNTPK. So that's good for mTCP (FTP), Watt-32 (Links2),
etc.

"-drive file=fat:rw:/myfiles/dos" is weak but good in a pinch.

Nothing else obvious sticks out as worth mentioning.

> - My system is a Linux 64-bits, but I am not sure if I should use either
> qemu-system-i386 or qemu-system-x64.

Isn't there a (Debian?) "kvm" script? IIRC, all that it does is use
x64 and "-enable-kvm". (That's assuming you have VT-X. One site
recommends this: egrep "(vmx|svm)" /proc/cpuinfo )

Otherwise, since you're on x64 anyways, just use the x64 version
(unless you know otherwise). No idea which is better for DOS (or
faster or more compatible or ...).

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Re: [Freedos-user] OT: Qemu questions

2017-06-21 Thread Jim Hall 
On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:34 AM, Santiago Almenara  wrote:
>
> Hello friends,
>
> I have re-discovered Qemu after using Virtualbox for FreeDOS for a couple of 
> years. Since qemu is mostly for command-line use (I don't use any laucher yet)
>
> I'd like to ask what are the options you usually use in Qemu.
>
> My options are:
>
> qemu-system.i386 -localtime -hda freedos.img -m 64 -soundhw sb16,adlib,pcspk
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> - Are any additional options I should use for DOS??
> - My system is a Linux 64-bits, but I am not sure if I should use either 
> qemu-system-i386 or qemu-system-x64.
>

I use QEMU to boot FreeDOS on my Linux system at home. I just did the
upgrade to Fedora 26beta, so I haven't tried QEMU under that yet, but
FreeDOS 1.2 worked fine in Fedora 25, including sound.

I'll share the options I use later tonight or tomorrow, when I can
boot my home system. I have a script to launch it the same way every
time. I don't use pcspk, but the rest of the options look similar.

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