Setting Up DOSBOX in Ubuntu to run Turbo C

A tutorial on how to set up DOSBOX in Ubuntu Linux with steps.

Table of Contents

DOSBOX

DOSBOX is an x86 architecture emulator which helps to run older DOS-based programs on modern computers running Windows or Linux. It creates a layer where all DOS programs can run from their own installation directory by mounting a virtual drive.

How to Install DOSBOX in Ubuntu Linux

To install DOSBOX in the Ubuntu version older than 16.04, Mint go to Software Center. Search for DOSBOX and click install.

To install DOSBOX in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above, open GNOME Software from the dash and search for DOSBOX, then click install.

For other Linux distributions, go to DOSBOX download page.

Setup DOSBOX to run old DOS programs

After installation is complete, go to Ubuntu dash/search for DOSBOX.
Click DOSBOX icon to start.
You should be seeing DOSBOX’s own terminal with a virtual Z:\ Drive.

Now it’s time to run a dos based application in Ubuntu using DOSBOX. For this tutorial, I have used the old TURBO C dos based editor which was used to create C and C++ applications.

Create a directory where we would be mounting the drives.
Go to your HOME directory (/home/your.user.name/).
Create a directory named “dos” (You can choose any name you want)
Copy your dos programs – for this example the entire TURBO C files into the newly created directory “dos”.

Go back to your DOSBOX terminal and run the below command. This command will mount the “dos” directory contents as virtual drive C:\ in DOSBOX.

mount c /home/your.user.name/dos

Go to newly mounted drive using C:\

Browse to your application directory executable file (*.exe) and type the same to run. For this example, the TURBO C executable resides in TC\BIN\TC.EXE
You can see your application is running inside the DOSBOX emulator.