
ANNOUNCEMENT
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The DOSEMU team is proud to announce DOSEMU 1.4.0,
the PC Emulator for x86 based Linux.

WHAT IS DOSEMU?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DOSEMU is a PC Emulator application that allows Linux to run a DOS
operating system in a virtual x86 machine. This allows you to run
many DOS applications. These are the capabilities of DOSEMU that are
worth noting:

  - color text and full keyboard emulation (via hotkeys) even on a terminal
  - built-in X Window System support (includes IBM character set font)
    including fullscreen X (via Ctrl-Alt-F)
  - graphics capability at the console (for most compatible video cards)
    (requires suid-root or sudo)
  - graphics emulation in X for many color modes
    (X-server may be in true color mode)
  - DPMI support
  - runs most 16-bit and 32-bit DPMI-compliant video games (including those
    based on DOS/4GW) at the Linux console and on X
  - integrated (command line) instruction level debugger, various break
    points, single stepping etc.
  - integrated EMS and XMS drivers
  - integrated packet driver
  - integrated mouse driver
  - integrated joystick driver
  - CDROM support
  - ASPI driver support (CD writers, scanners, tapes etc.)
    (requires access rights to /dev/sgX)
  - support for redirected drives (any Linux directory can be 'mounted'
    as DOS drive via the lredir command)
  - can even directly boot from a Linux directory containing all DOS files
  - sound support (including sound DMA and Midi)
  - NetWare and other network connectivity via built-in IPX and pktdrvr
    support
  - the dosemu-freedos binary package starts a DOS-"C:\>"-Drive
    'out-of-the-box' in a normal user's $HOME directory and runs without 
    any further configuration (no root rights needed)

WHAT IS NEW against version 1.2.2?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Many bugs have been fixed.
- Added a native 64-bit port for x86-64, which, by default, uses CPU emulation
  for V86 mode, and runs DPMI code natively.
- For a first time boot with FreeDOS, DOSEMU now boots without any user
  interaction, and presents a welcome screen. 
- "dosemu" starts xdosemu by default in X. Use "dosemu -t" to force terminal
  mode.
- Everyone, including root, needs to use "dosemu -s" to be able to use direct
  hardware access. The -s switch automatically uses direct VGA graphics and
  raw keyboard mode on the Linux console.
- You can reboot the DOSEMU virtual machine using Ctrl-Alt-Del
- The utility unix.com can now execute Linux commands within DOSEMU
  interactively.
- Run-time plugins are used to allow binary distribution without depending
  on all libraries.
- The -dumb switch quietens DOSEMU until the command is executed if a command
  is given. So "dosemu -dumb dir" gives a directory listing and nothing else.
- VGA Emulator: bitmap fonts are much quicker.
- Fixed new errors and warnings with GCC 4.x.
- The dosemu script is compatible with the minimal shell dash.
- An automatic backtrace using GDB (output in ~/.dosemu/boot.log)
  is attempted when DOSEMU crashes.
- DOSEMU's stack is no longer marked executable which may improve security.
- Clarified the copyrights and replaced some code with unclear origins.
  The disclaimer acceptance has been weakened.
- CPU emulation (SIMX86)
  - The SIMX86 simulator is now a runtime option, activated via
    $_cpuemu="vm86sim", or $_cpuemu="fullsim". Without the "sim"
    JIT compilation (dynamic translation) is used.
  - SIMX86 is automatically invoked if the vm86 is not supported by the
    Linux kernel. This includes x86-64 systems, kernel configurations
    for embedded use, and some virtualization systems.
- DPMI
  - Implemented DPMI uncommitted memory support.
  - Support for the HX DOS Extender was added. It is now possible to run
    some win32 console applications under dosemu, using that extender.
  - The Blinker extender is now fully supported (all known versions).
  - The PM API translator now uses the EMS page frame to save 64K
    of conventional memory.
  - Many DPMI and PM API translator fixes to support all commercial
    Borland tools and other protected-mode programs, especially when
    using Linux kernel 2.6.12 or newer.
  - Most of the DPMI 1.0 API and functionality were added.
  - Fixed IF flag virtualization for DPMI. This causes many DPMI applications
    to work reliably without random crashes (such as Transport Tycoon,
    Screamer, Vchess).
  - Implemented LDT virtualization / direct LDT access for DPMI clients.
  - Windows 3.1 now works natively, without any need for WINOS2 patches.
  - Many other improvements to make Windows 3 in DOSEMU more stable and usable.
  - Implemented debug breakpoints for DPMI.
  - Customized SVGA drivers of Windows 3.11 can now be used instead
    of the Trident drivers (refer to Section 9.2 of README.txt).
- Memory management
  - Improved the internal XMS driver.
  - It is now possible to use an external XMS driver, such as himem.sys.
  - Freed up 4K of UMB space.
- File systems
  - The default C: drive has changed from ~/dosemu/freedos to ~/.dosemu/drive_c
    (similar to Wine). Drive Z: is now a read-only drive with all the DOSEMU
    and FreeDOS support files.
  - Added support for the Long File Name (int21/ah=71) interface on redirected
    drives.
  - The redirected drive file system code is much faster than before.
  - You can now directly see and manipulate DOS file attributes on Lredir'ed
    Linux-mounted (V)FAT partitions, when using recent 2.6 kernels.
  - Lredir can now automatically find a new drive.
- CDROM and floppies
  - Added a $_cdrom option for runtime configuration of the CD-ROM device.
  - Added an internal *CDEX style CD-ROM driver, activated using LREDIR, for
    use with CD-ROMs that are mounted in Linux. The default autoexec.bat
    uses this to set drive E: to a CD-ROM.
  - It is now possible to point $_vbootfloppy, $_floppy_a etc. to directories
    and boot from them.
  - The floppy is much faster with 2.6 kernels.
  - Added support for 2.88M floppies
- Sound, mice, keyboards, printers, serial ports, I/O, and networking
  - A new sound system is available. It is for now an optional run-time option,
    $_sound=(2).
  - Added some support for sound recording.
  - Added the "INT 15h" PS/2 mouse interface.
  - Much improved keyboard layout auto-detection
  - The printer code now uses line buffering so that you do not have to
    wait $_printer_timeout seconds before printing starts.
  - Use $_lpt1, $_lpt2, and $_lpt3 for printer configuration.
  - TTY locking can be disabled by $_ttylocks=""
  - The reliability and performance of the serial ports emulation are much
    improved.
  - I/O ports are "fast" by default.
  - IPX and Packet Driver code was seriously reworked.
- Timers
  - Added $_time_mode="linux" option to force the DOS clock to sync with
    the Linux time.
  - Improved real time clock support with a periodic IRQ generator.
- Terminals
  - UTF-8 terminals are supported if you use SLang 2 or a UTF-8
    patched SLang 1 library. The supplied SLang library subset is no
    longer necessary and no longer provided.
  - $_term_char_set no longer exists;
    $_external_char_set now defaults to the current locale.
  - Even on non UTF-8 terminals many line drawing characters can now
    be used, and on the Linux console almost the full CP437 character set.
  - Many ctrl, alt, shift combinations with function keys, arrow keys, etc,
    can now be used in xterm and friends.
  - VGA hardware is emulated in terminal mode as well as in X mode.
- Linux console
  - VESA driver added which should be compatible with most BIOSes. This
    is the default.
  - Linear frame buffers now work.
  - Improved behaviour in conjunction with frame buffer consoles.
  - Improved PCI emulation on the console, with $_pci=(auto).
- X Window System
  - Added extra X fonts.
  - The X aspect ratio is no longer set to 4:3 by default, but an integer
    multiple of the real resolution.
  - A graphical mouse cursor now works under X with mouse grab enabled.
  - Added keyboard grab, hard-coded to Ctrl-Alt-k for now.
  - Add $_X_title_show_appname.
  - Implemented support for Unicode fonts for $_X_font, so you can for
    instance use the univga font or
    $_X_font="-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO10646-1"
  - 16 bpp graphics programs now run in X with 24/32 bpp.
- SDL support
  New: makes it possible to run DOSEMU on all supported SDL back-ends.
  It is almost as capable as the X plug-in, and provides a safer way
  to get console graphics, using fbdev.
- Removed mapself support, the old keyboard code, coopthreads, and comcom.

REQUIREMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~
  - Linux >= 2.0.30 (with IPC support, IPX support optional)
  - a DOS as guest-OS, which can be booted by DOSEMU
    (FreeDOS is included in the RPM or can be downloaded as
    dosemu-freedos-*-bin.tgz)

When compiling DOSEMU yourself:
  - GCC 2.91.66 or higher and glibc 2.1.3 or higher are required
  - binutils > 2.9.1.0.25
  - bison, _not_ yacc, and flex

COPYRIGHT
~~~~~~~~~
DOSEMU is set under GPL version 2 (see the files COPYING.DOSEMU and COPYING
in the distribution).   ~~~~~~~~~
The DOS, which is processed (booted) by DOSEMU, may have any other policy and is
explicitly allowed to be proprietary.


WHERE TO GET IT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The DOSEMU PC Emulator can be downloaded at:

  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49784

The binary package is dynamically linked against glibc-2.2 and libX*
from XFree86. It should run on all recent Linux distributions.


HELPING US
~~~~~~~~~~
Many thanks to all who have helped with this release, by sending bug
reports, patches, comments and/or ideas for DOSEMU! Our apologies for
not having answered every letter, and possibly missing some important
information. If you know something you think we should know, contact
us. We can be reached at:

"The DOSEMU Team" <linux-msdos@vger.kernel.org>
http://www.dosemu.org


- - - -	- - - -				May 2007,
					Bart Oldeman <bart@dosemu.org>
					coordinator of "The DOSEMU Team"
