[ros-dev] (Free)DOS subsystem

[James Tabor]

Imre Leber wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I guess i am new to this list. 
> 
> I have been a maintainer on the FreeDOS project for more then 7 years.
> 
> I have also noticed that you are still looking into building a DOS subsystem in reactos.
> 
> After the release of FreeDOS version 1, I would like to see wether I could not take up the task to having it running under reactos.
> 
> My main idea involves using a port of DOSemu. 
> 
> Is there any documentation regarding the running of a DOS subsystem in windows that I should study beforehand?
> 
> Imre
> 
> 
Hi Imre!
Welcome to ReactOS! 8^D

The idea is still open.

We've tested Qemu under ReactOS running FreeDOS at one time and it does work. Another project that 
was tested, DOSBox, it works like DOSemu, http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/


Running a dos-subsystem and docs? Maybe one of the other developers can help here. You can look at 
the OS2 subsystem at http://svn.reactos.ru/svn/reactos/trunk/os2/ , it's incomplete, this would be 
your best starting point. There is allot more to it. You need to dive into the code and start 
reading. I do not recall any docs or books dealing with rolling your own subsystem. The best book
you can get for understanding Windows or ReactOS is, Windows Internals. Understanding the Csrss 
subsystem would help with the os2 one.

Anyway, some projects that could be good examples on how to do this, Posix subsystem, 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winntposix ,and running linux bins in windows, 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/keow . One of our developers is currently working with CoLinux, 
http://www.colinux.org/ .

Sorry I couldn't help you more here.

Thanks,
James