To install, you first need to create a virtual disk with qemu-img: $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 freedos.qcow2 500M
Then boot QEMU with the virtual disk and the LiveCD installer: (this uses the T2511 monthly test release, that Jerome announced yesterday) $ qemu-system-i386 -hda freedos.qcow2 -cdrom T2511LIVE.iso -boot order=d That's the same command line I use to install on my desktop PC (which is Intel) but without the -enable-kvm command line option. After the installation is done, you can boot FreeDOS from the virtual disk. You can add all kinds of options here to emulate specific components like a sound card. The most basic invocation is: $ qemu-system-i386 -hda freedos.qcow2 On my desktop PC, I use this: qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -rtc base=localtime -audiodev pa,id=snd -machine pcspk-audiodev=snd -device sb16,audiodev=snd -device adlib,audiodev=snd -global i8042.kbd-throttle=on -drive bus=0,unit=0,media=disk,file=freedos.qcow2 -drive bus=0,unit=1,media=disk,file=/home/jhall/virtualmachines/files.qcow2 -drive bus=1,unit=0,media=cdrom,file=T2511LIVE.iso -drive bus=1,unit=1,media=cdrom,file=T2511BNS.iso But on a Raspberry Pi, you must omit the -enable-kvm option. On Sun, Nov 2, 2025 at 3:36 PM Jim Hall <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 2, 2025 at 1:53 PM Matt Newell via Freedos-user > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi Jim, > > > > I am working with primarily arm computers (Raspberry Pi primarily) > > and as of now the virtualization is poor to nonexistent. > > > I disagree. I have a Raspberry Pi 3B and I use QEMU on it to boot > FreeDOS. It works very well, although installing is very slow (partly > because all CPU instructions are emulated in software, and partly > because of the slower I/O on my microSD card). But it works fine after > installing, and not any slower than a '486 or '386 of the era. > > You can find lots of articles about installing FreeDOS on Raspberry Pi > using QEMU, like this one: > https://windowsreport.com/how-to-run-dos-on-a-raspberry-pi/ > > I wrote about it on Opensource.com in 2018: > https://opensource.com/article/18/3/can-you-run-dos-raspberry-pi _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
