README

Introduction
-----
Here you can find ready to use DOSBox emulator that works with Steam Runtime.

This can be used by game publishers to easily create packages of old DOS games that will run on SteamOS and Steam for Linux.


Usage
-----
Copy 'dosbox-64bit', 'dosbox-32bit','dosbox-source' and 'run.sh' into working directory.
Copy DOS game files into subdirectory named after the game title (example: DOSGAME).
Create 'dosbox.conf' configuration file with emulator settings optimized for the game.
Add [autoexec] section to the configuration file. More details below.

The final structure should look similar to this
.
├── dosbox-32bit
│   ├── bin
│   │   └── dosbox
│   └── lib
│       └── ...
├── dosbox-64bit
│   ├── bin
│   │   └── dosbox
│   └── lib
│       └── ...
├── dosbox-source
│   └── ...
├── DOSGAME *
│   └── ...
├── dosbox.conf *
└── run.sh

Files and directories marked with '*' are created by you.

To automatically start the game when DOSBox emulator loads we need to define [autoexec] section in the configuration file. This section should contain instructions that will mount the game directory and execute EXE/COM/BAT file that starts the actual game.

It should look similar to this
...
[autoexec]
@echo off
mount c DOSGAME
c:
call START.BAT
exit


Technical details
-----
DOSBox binaries with requred libraries were extracted from official Ubuntu Precise packages on which the Steam Runtime is based on.
Both 64-bit and 32-bit Linux is supported.
The run.sh script takes care of properly starting the emulator by checking system architecture and adding libraries to system search path.
DOSBox is distributed under GPLv2 license which requires us to attach its sources. They are located in 'dosbox-source' directory along with applied patches. 


Links
-----
Steam - http://store.steampowered.com/
Steam Runtime - https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime
DOSBox - https://www.dosbox.com/
Ubuntu package - https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+source/dosbox