DOSEMU

It uses a combination of hardware-assisted virtualization features and high-level emulation. It can thus achieve nearly native speed for 8086-compatible DOS operating systems and applications on x86 compatible processors, and for DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) applications on x86 compatible processors as well as on x86-64 processors. DOSEMU includes an 8086 processor emulator for use with real-mode applications in x86-64 long mode.

DOSEMU is only available for x86 and x86-64 Linux systems (Linux 3.15 x86-64 systems cannot enter DPMI by default. This is fixed in 3.16).{{cite web|title= #751632 dosemu: DPMI fails to initialize on x86_64 with linux 3.15|url=https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=751632}} 140715 bugs.debian.org

DOSEMU is an option for people who need or want to continue to use legacy DOS software; in some cases virtualisation is good enough to drive external hardware such as device programmers connected to the parallel port. According to its manual, "dosemu" is a user-level program which uses certain special features of the Linux kernel and the 80386 processor to run DOS in a DOS box. The DOS box, relying on a combination of hardware and software, has these abilities:

• Virtualize all input-output and processor control instructions
• Supports the word size and addressing modes of the iAPX86 processor family's "real mode", while still running within the full protected mode environment
• Trap all DOS and BIOS system calls and emulate such calls as needed for proper operation and good performance
• Simulate a hardware environment over which DOS programs are accustomed to having control.
• Provide DOS services through native Linux services; for example, dosemu can provide a virtual hard disk drive which is actually a Linux directory hierarchy.{{cite web|title=The dosemu HOWTO|url=http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/docs/HOWTO/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121225104014/http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/docs/HOWTO/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-12-25}} 090430 dosemu.sourceforge.net
• API-level support for Packet driver,{{cite web|title=dosemu v1.3.5 source|url=http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosemu/dosemu-1.3.5.tgz?download}} 090430 prdownloads.sourceforge.net src/dosext/net/net/pktnew.c IPX, Berkeley sockets (dosnet).{{cite web|title=dosemu v1.4.0 source |date=2007-05-05 |access-date=2016-04-06 |url=http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosemu/dosemu-1.4.0.tgz?download}} src/dosext/net/net/ipx.c src/dosext/net/v-net/dosnet.c{{cite web|title=The DOSEMU team is proud to announce DOSEMU 1.4.0 |date=2007-05-05 |access-date=2016-04-06 |url=http://dosemu.org/stable/announce |quote=NetWare and other network connectivity via built-in IPX and pktdrvr support /../ the dosemu-freedos binary package starts a DOS-"C:\>"-Drive 'out-of-the-box' in a normal user's $HOME directory and runs without any further configuration (no root rights needed) |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315163935/http://dosemu.org/stable/announce |archive-date=March 15, 2016}}

{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}

• Comparison of platform virtualization software
• Virtual DOS machine
• DOSBox
• Wine
• FreeDOS

{{reflist}}

• {{Official website}}
• [https://dosemu2.github.io/dosemu2/ dosemu2]

{{Virtualization software}}

Category:1992 software

Category:DOS emulators

Category:Compatibility layers

Category:Linux emulation software