I don’t know if many of you remember my post on old DOS games and how easy it is to play them using DOSBox.  Well, it may not surprise you that you can easily install DOSBox on FreeBSD. And yes, on FreeBSD you can play all your favorite old DOS games.

Of course, I assume you have a FreeBSD desktop.

Installing DOSBox on FreeBSD

To install from ports, do this:

To install from packages do this:

Configuring DOSBox on FreeBSD

Create a folder, probably in your home directory but it can be where ever you want, to store your DOS games.

The configuration file is in your home director: ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf

Add the following line to the end of the config under the [autoexec] section.

Note: Make sure you have hte trailing slash ‘/’ as the path you mount to must end in a slash.

Running DOSBox on FreeBSD

DOSBox installs to /usr/local/bin/dosbox which is in $PATH so you can run DOSBox at anytime by simply typing in dosbox in a shell.

However, you can create an entry for it in KDE’s menu if you want.

Now before you go on, type in intro and read each page as you will get lots of important information about how to use DOSBox in the intro.

Now make sure to read these pages. They tell you how to go full-screen, capture/release your mouse, etc…

Downloading DOS Games

As mentioned in my previous post about DOS games, you can go here to this cleverly named site to download a lot of DOS games.

Abandonia

Loading a DOS Game

It is just like DOS.  Change to the directory where your game is and run the games exe file.

For example, if you downloaded The Bard’s Tale II: The Destiny Knight, you would type the following:

And your game is launched.

Have fun.  It would takes years to play all the old DOS games at Abandonia.