Re: [Freedos-user] No soundblaster under FreeDOS vm
Hi, On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 9:22 PM, Joel Graff wrote: > > I'm working on setting up a FreeDOS 1.2 VM in VirtualBox. I've selected the > SoundBlaster16 / PulseAudio pairing in the audio settings, but have not been > able to get audio working on some old DOS games. Which games? I don't know of a good guide, but here's one from quick searching: http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Games But I'm not honestly sure if VBox is ideal for gaming (graphics / sound). I tend to think that their focus lies elsewhere, but maybe you'll get lucky. I had spotty luck with Doom and others (a year or so back), but I'm not much of a gamer anymore anyways. In short, I think DOSBox is much more heavily recommended for classic DOS gaming since it has full graphics and sound emulation for many types of hardware (SB, GUS, Adlib, PC speaker, etc). > I'm running Linux Mint 18.1, VirtualBox 5.0.4, and FreeDOS 1.2 Win7 (64-bit) Home, VBox 5.1.22 (no VT-X), FreeDOS (kernel 2041) on this old Dell laptop works with "some" sound programs, e.g. TinyPlay (.MOD player). (Of course, I don't know if "Windows DirectSound" Host Driver for SB16 Controller would make a practical difference for your specific host hardware.) set BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 > I have the soundblaster environment variable defined in autoexec.bat. What values does it hold? > Do I need to be loading a .SYS driver in FDCONFIG.SYS? Not really, but it depends (as every program had different support, sadly). -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] No soundblaster under FreeDOS vm
I use QEMU, but emulating SoundBlaster16, same as you describe. Sounds works fine here. Check your values. I use this: BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 On Jun 13, 2017 9:23 PM, "Joel Graff" wrote: Hello, I'm working on setting up a FreeDOS 1.2 VM in VirtualBox. I've selected the SoundBlaster16 / PluseAudio pairing in the audio settings, but have not been able to get audio working on some old DOS games. I'm running Linux Mint 18.1, VirtualBox 5.0.4, and FreeDOS 1.2 I have the soundblaster environment variable defined in autoexec.bat. Do I need to be loading a .SYS driver in FDCONFIG.SYS? *Joel Graff, P.E.* *LinkedIn:* https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelcgraff -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] No soundblaster under FreeDOS vm
Hello, I'm working on setting up a FreeDOS 1.2 VM in VirtualBox. I've selected the SoundBlaster16 / PluseAudio pairing in the audio settings, but have not been able to get audio working on some old DOS games. I'm running Linux Mint 18.1, VirtualBox 5.0.4, and FreeDOS 1.2 I have the soundblaster environment variable defined in autoexec.bat. Do I need to be loading a .SYS driver in FDCONFIG.SYS? *Joel Graff, P.E.* *LinkedIn:* https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelcgraff -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Apropos and Whatis
from Jiri Wackermann: I'm not an active user of FreeDOS, so I'm only > a listener on this channel, just for curiosity. > Regarding 'apropos' and 'whatis' and their relatives: > these commands are related to manual pages, it's all > Unix philosophy. If you have a Linux around, try > man whatis > and > whatis whatis > and you'll know everything. In my view, 'man' > is much easier to use than 'info' (Linux). I hate 'info' enough that I find it easier to go through an info file with 'less'. There is a pinfo package that works much better than 'info' for going through an info file, but I don't know if it is available or buildable for DOS. If you have KDE installed, Konqueror had a good way of viewing an info file, but Xorg and KDE are far above the capability of any DOS. Tom -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Apropos and Whatis
On 6/13/2017 4:02 PM, Simon van Meygaarden wrote: > Greetings, Folks. > > Ralf > First time I hear about those programs, and they are not > something elementary to (Free)DOS, > Jiri > All this is essentially for people who already know what's > there or what should be there, not really for novices. > > I respectfully disagree. -smile- > > The first thing a new user will see when FreeDOS boots, is the message > "Type HELP to get support on commands and navigation". When one types > HELP, the first line of the Main Help page says "For information on > using Help, press F1...". When F1 is pressed, the How to use the > FreeDOS Help page is displayed, and this pages mentions WHATIS and > APROPOS. > > So after learning the HELP command, the next two commands a new user > will learn are WHATIS and APROPOS. And they don't work! It gets even > worse: the same Help page also mentions FASTHELP, FDHELP, and > FSUITE04. And these don't work either! Again, those programs are not in any form an integral part of FreeDOS. That those are mentioned in that Help program is an issue you need to take up with the author of the Help tool. Best guess is that he wrote something copied verbatim from a similar tool in Linux, without either noticing the mentioning or not following up with it. Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Apropos and Whatis
Greetings, Folks. Ralf > First time I hear about those programs, and they are not something elementary to (Free)DOS, Jiri > All this is essentially for people who already know what's there or what should be there, not really for novices. I respectfully disagree. -smile- The first thing a new user will see when FreeDOS boots, is the message "Type HELP to get support on commands and navigation". When one types HELP, the first line of the Main Help page says "For information on using Help, press F1...". When F1 is pressed, the How to use the FreeDOS Help page is displayed, and this pages mentions WHATIS and APROPOS. So after learning the HELP command, the next two commands a new user will learn are WHATIS and APROPOS. And they don't work! It gets even worse: the same Help page also mentions FASTHELP, FDHELP, and FSUITE04. And these don't work either! Now for an experienced user this is not a big issue, I agree, but for a new user this might just be enough to quit and never look a FreeDOS again. And that would be a shame. To be sure, I consider myself an experienced user, but when I dir into FDOS\BIN and see those 316 different entries, there's a whole lot of software in there that absolutely don't know about. A simple WHATIS CWSDSTUB would make my life much easier. Obviously, I could write a WHATIS.BAT myself, and store it in FDOS\LINKS, which is in the path. Something like: @if exist \FDOS\APPINFO\%1.LSM HEAD -N 5 \FDOS\APPINFO\%1.LSM Not so pretty, but it works, and it's only 62 bytes. But my point is, this is mentioned in the Help pages, so these programs did once exist, and I can't image why someone would remove them purposefully. In other words, I think this is a little bug, and if needed, I can download an investigate earlier versions and see if I can find these programs and add them, but that would only solve *my* problem, and so I felt it was worth mentioning. Take care, Simon -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Apropos and Whatis
Hello there, I'm not an active user of FreeDOS, so I'm only a listener on this channel, just for curiosity. Regarding 'apropos' and 'whatis' and their relatives: these commands are related to manual pages, it's all Unix philosophy. If you have a Linux around, try man whatis and whatis whatis and you'll know everything. In my view, 'man' is much easier to use than 'info' (Linux). 'whatis' and 'apropos' search a database created from a collection of man pages by 'makewhatis'. Look at man makewhatis for an explanation. 'Whatis' looks for complete word matches, 'apropos' for any matches in the database, that's the only difference (in my understanding). Thus 'Apropos' may produce a great amount of output. I find these commands very useful for looking around on an unknown system (or a known system after a substantial update ;-), combined with 'grep' to filter out references that are really relevant for my search. All this is essentially for people who already know what's there or what should be there, not really for novices. If you like browser-style help, you will probably dislike man pages and their relatives. Just a matter of taste. I wouldn't consider them elementary in the sense of something that should be part of a BASE distribution, in that I agree with Ralf. DJGPP had man pages and also 'whatis' and such, if I'm not mistaken. It's many many years ago I was running DJGPP on MS-DOS 6.22. Marvellous times, everything was so simple and easy. Keep the FreeDOS project up and thriving! Best wishes to all, Jiri _ Jiri Wackermann, Dr.phil. Independent researcher Elzstr. 33b D-79261 Gutach i.Br. Deutschland/Germany Tel.: +49 7681 4936707 Tel.: +49 151 29105469 (mobile) E-Mail: m...@jiri-wackermann.eu "Est modus in rebus ..." (Horatius) ___ On 2017-06-13 06:39, Ralf Quint wrote: On 6/12/2017 3:14 PM, Simon van Meygaarden wrote: Greetings, Folks. One of the things I really like about FreeDOS 1.2 is the incredible Help browser: a perfect way to browse through the documentation, and, in my opinion, much better then the man-pages in Linux. In "How to use the FreeDOS help" I found a reference to an Apropos command, and a Whatis command, which seemed very helpful in trying to find out what FreeDOS has to offer. However, these commands are not available in either BASE or FULL installation, FDIMPLES doesn't mention them, and I can't find them in the Packages. So the question is: am I doing something wrong, and, if not, how do I add these commands to my system? First time I hear about those programs, and they are not something elementary to (Free)DOS, they are rather Linux commands/programs. You don't really miss out on anything on your setup. The author of the Help system might be able (or not) to shed some more light on this... Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
