Support for Global EMM Import Specification (GEMMIS)

[murkyness]

Hi! Really happy to have found this project.

Does fdpp currently, or will it in the future, support the GEMMIS API?

This API is required for full MS-DOS feature parity, as well as running Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode. Adding it would certainly help make fdpp live up to its name as an enhanced version of FreeDOS.

[stsp]

Its not a DOS business to support
GEMMIS API. It is supported by emm386.exe.
I test windows-3.1 under fdpp regularly
and it works fine. But GEMMIS is entirely
unrelated to this and to fdpp.

Adding it would certainly help make fdpp live up to its name as an enhanced version of FreeDOS.

FreeDOS is self-hosted, and fdpp needs
some run-time environment. So its not a
direct competitor to freedos, except for
the environments that can boot fdpp. And
on such environments fdpp is already the
unbeatable, much enhanced version of
FreeDOS. Unfortunately, such environments
are rare. :) GEMMIS will not help with that.

[stsp]

Why do you think I haven't tried either one?

Because then you would say something
like "I tried to install windows, but it crashes
for me this way" instead of talking about
GEMMIS and other unrelated things.

[murkyness]

Because then you would say something
like "I tried to install windows, but it crashes
for me this way" instead of talking about
GEMMIS and other unrelated things.

I extracted all the Windows 3.11 floppies to ~/.dosemu2/c_drive/INSTALL
Then I started dosemu2 and ran SETUP from within the INSTALL directory

Windows setup starts

But when I try to continue it gets stuck at this screen

and Windows never starts.

I'm assuming I need a custom config file but I haven't found that documented anywhere.

If you could help, I would appreciate it.

[stsp]

You can fill a bug report.
When you do, you will be prompted
automatically with what info to provide.

[murkyness]

You can fill a bug report.
When you do, you will be prompted
automatically with what info to provide.

See, that's why I didn't bring it up here. lol

[stsp]

Hi again.

So it seems, @jschwartzenberg have
filled the bugs for you and also did the
bisect, so now we seem to have all the
win31 problems fixed.
Please try your tests again if you are
still interested.
While still no DOS prompt support in
386 mode, the DOS prompt of 286
mode is now much more reliable and
can Alt-Tab from the prot mode DOS
apps.

[stsp]

You might be interested in this project:
https://fossbytes.com/developer-creates-dos-subsystem-for-linux-dsl/
If they support GEMMIS, they could
bootstrap out of emm386.exe.

[murkyness]

I see. Thank you for the explanation.

I'm trying to run Windows 98SE, or at least WFW 3.11 in 386 Enhanced mode, on newer embedded hardware. I was interested your project since it runs on linux (allowing me to use linux drivers) and runs faster than DOSBox. Although the DSL link you provided is interesting, it looks like the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

I think DOSBox (or DOSBox-x) is closer to my use case, so I'll look more into that. But thank you again for your help :)

[stsp]

Hi @murkyness
Just wanted to let you know that
we recently closed the remaining
windows-related instabilities with KVM.
Needs a rather recent linux kernel
though, as the problem was in the
kernel.

So while I can't promise much, at
least now the windows support that
we have, works at a full power.
Whereas when you tested it first, it
was completely unmaintained.
While there is still no dos box in
386 mode, the 286 mode dos box
works at full, including the Alt-Tab
from protected-mode apps - something
that on real PC is only possible in
386 mode.
Would be nice to know if your
experience with win31 under fdpp
is improved by these changes.

[stsp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeM6trlaNL4

Someone made a nice video
on installing win31 under dosemu2.

[jschwartzenberg]

Interesting also that it uses an ET4000 display driver. I never knew that could work for DOSEMU2.