OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Ibrahim Hakeem on October 20, 2020, 10:15:17 am

Title: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Ibrahim Hakeem on October 20, 2020, 10:15:17 am
Hi all, I hope we're doing well today  :)

Recently I've been trying to get Windows 95 running under DOSBox/2 upon seeing that it's been done before, if the screenshots in the eCSoft2 page are correct. I was hoping to find out if anyone here has actually managed it before and if so, any comments about how they got it up and running. I've only gotten as far as mounting the image and booting it with a generic "Error Loading Operating System" so far.

Cheers  ;D
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Martin Iturbide on October 29, 2020, 02:58:24 am
Hi

I wanted to give it a try just to know if it is possible on ArcaOS 5.0.6 and Dosbox/2 0.74 (built 2020/06/06).
I tried the instructions of this kid in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp361UR_-Ps

Basically it is:
1) Get W95.img file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/763teqrm784exe2/W95.IMG/file
2) Run DoxBox
3) Inside DOSBox run:
- mount c c:\W95\                   --> This is where you stored the  W95.img on your hdd
- c:
- imgmount A: C:w95.img
- boot w95.img

I got the same message you got. "Error loading operating system".
I tried it on Windows 10 and it worked.

Regards
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 29, 2020, 03:06:55 am
I doubt that Dosbox can give enough address space on OS/2. Microsoft broke Win32s and Win32 on Os/2 by forcing some DLLs to load into high memory.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Doug Bissett on October 30, 2020, 06:11:28 pm
Since DOSBox is an operating system (DOS), I don't know why you would expect it to run another operating system (Win95). Win 3.1 can (must) be installed in DOS, so Win 3.1 works (possibly even the win 32s extension, I never bothered trying). Win95 programs will often (but not always) run in ODIN.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 31, 2020, 12:11:52 am
I thought DosBox was more of a virtual machine designed to run DOS. Win95 is at its heart DOS and on other OSes, there are reports of Win95 running on it.
Even in our DOS session, I've successfully ran an old 16 bit version of Minix, which I'd assume would also run under DosBox.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 03, 2020, 04:28:20 pm
Well, as Win95 needs DOS as a bootloader, it should work in Dosbox.
I will try debug the problem. @Martin: Can you send me your setup?
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 03, 2020, 05:15:36 pm
@Martin: Can you send me your setup?

Hi Jochen.

I have a Thinkpad L420 (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_L420) with ArcaOS 5.0.6. I installed Dosbox/2 0.74 (built 2020/06/06) from your site. This is the machine were I get the error by following the instructions from the YouTuber I posted before.

Let me know what else can I do to help.

Regards
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 03, 2020, 05:20:05 pm
Hi Martin.

What is your dosbox.conf?


Bye Jochen
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 03, 2020, 09:58:55 pm
Hi Jochen.

It is a recent install of DOSBox, I haven't modified dosbox.conf. Here it is attached.
Regards
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 05, 2020, 08:54:45 am
I tried it and it doesn't work. Being at it, I just compiled a new version and uploaded it to the usual place.
I have to talk to the developer, whether they have any clue. I also want to do some boot tests.
Stay tuned.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 07, 2020, 09:29:01 am
So, it seems that the boot features doesn't work correctly. I tried a boot disk image, but that wouldn't  boot either.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 08, 2020, 06:13:57 pm
Hi Jochen.

Is that something specifically not working on the OS/2 port? Or it is something wrong in the project source code?

Regards
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 09, 2020, 09:48:49 am
I would think, that this is a port issue, first. If it would be broken in Dosbox (entirely possible), I would think, that this gets fixed immediately.
I have to sort out how to debug stuff, because I can't get any OS/2 debugger to see debug symbols.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Andi B. on November 09, 2020, 10:57:13 am
Which tool chain do you use for compiling?
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 09, 2020, 12:09:14 pm
It's GCC 9, the Watcom linker etc. from Yum.
I put "-g" on CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and LDFLAGS, but in the Watcom debuggers and the IBM C Compilers debugger, all I get is assembly. All my attempts to select sources, failed for me.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Dave Yeo on November 09, 2020, 04:46:34 pm
It's GCC 9, the Watcom linker etc. from Yum.
I put "-g" on CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and LDFLAGS, but in the Watcom debuggers and the IBM C Compilers debugger, all I get is assembly. All my attempts to select sources, failed for me.

You're compiling with at least LDFLAGS=-Zomf ? You also have to use an IBM debugger as the Watcom won't work with the STAB debug format.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Tuure Linden on November 09, 2020, 05:32:16 pm
I was able to install and run Windows 95 under Dosbox in ArcaOS 5.0.1 some months ago, BUT it was really unusable. It usually crashed after a few seconds after the desktop was loaded.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Ibrahim Hakeem on November 09, 2020, 06:08:53 pm
I was able to install and run Windows 95 under Dosbox in ArcaOS 5.0.1 some months ago, BUT it was really unusable. It usually crashed after a few seconds after the desktop was loaded.

With this bit of info in mind, could it be it that this whole situation is due to a regression which gradually grew more complicated? The ECSoft/2 page's screenshots show it running under Ecomstation, perhaps implying it's been a long time since it was totally stable?
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 11, 2020, 08:41:07 am
I was able to install and run Windows 95 under Dosbox in ArcaOS 5.0.1 some months ago, BUT it was really unusable. It usually crashed after a few seconds after the desktop was loaded.
Do you remember which version, you used back then?
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 11, 2020, 08:47:45 am
It's GCC 9, the Watcom linker etc. from Yum.
I put "-g" on CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and LDFLAGS, but in the Watcom debuggers and the IBM C Compilers debugger, all I get is assembly. All my attempts to select sources, failed for me.

You're compiling with at least LDFLAGS=-Zomf ? You also have to use an IBM debugger as the Watcom won't work with the STAB debug format.
Yes, and some other -Z. I appended my config.site. When wanting to debug, I switch to a debug config, where I added -g to C(XX)FLAGS and LDFLAGS and removed -O2. Do I have to add something more?
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Paul Smedley on November 11, 2020, 11:01:43 am
It's GCC 9, the Watcom linker etc. from Yum.
I put "-g" on CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and LDFLAGS, but in the Watcom debuggers and the IBM C Compilers debugger, all I get is assembly. All my attempts to select sources, failed for me.

You're compiling with at least LDFLAGS=-Zomf ? You also have to use an IBM debugger as the Watcom won't work with the STAB debug format.
Yes, and some other -Z. I appended my config.site. When wanting to debug, I switch to a debug config, where I added -g to C(XX)FLAGS and LDFLAGS and removed -O2. Do I have to add something more?

Make sure you don't have -s in ldflags - that will strip the debug symbols you added with -g
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 11, 2020, 01:48:46 pm
Damn it. I knew, I'd miss something.
Thanks Paul.

EDIT: It worked.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Tuure Linden on November 11, 2020, 04:42:10 pm
Do you remember which version, you used back then?

I'm afraid that I don't. I think that ArcaOS was 5.0.1 or 5.0.2 and Dosbox was the latest build available on OS/2. Windows 95 might have been the OSR2 version. It was almost a year ago....
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 13, 2020, 10:13:46 pm
I could boot from a FreeDOS boot disk. So, I guess, the boot in itself should work.
Until now, I couldn't figure out why the Windows 95 boot image doesn't work. It seems, that the image is not mounted anymore after boot.
The missing os message comes form the bootsector of the image.
Title: Re: Windows 95 in DOSBox/2
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on November 19, 2020, 07:48:00 pm
I did some tests on Linux with an version of Dosbox installed through the package system and the newest source code compilation. With the packaged version, Windows 95 boots and with the newest one, it does not.
Interesting enough, the FreeDOS works with both versions.

I think, we have a regression here. I will try to issue an bug report.