dosemu-freedos does not work out of the box.

[PaulSchulz]

After installing 'dosemu' and 'dosemu-freedos', running 'dosemu' does get to a running dosemu shell with the error below..

----
ERROR: Unable to open console to evaluate the keyboard map.
Please specify your keyboard map explicitly via the $_layout option
----

Suggestions? Ideas?

[PaulSchulz (paulschulz)]

(Moved from dosemu-freedos)

Editing '/etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf', and changing $_layout = "us" causes execution to fail without reporting an error. (A message is flashed onto the dosemu screen.. but it's too fast to read.)

[William Grant (wgrant)]

It certainly doesn't work. How odd.

[PaulSchulz (paulschulz)]

Running with -o (debug) option gives the following output..

CONF: config variable parser_version_3 set
CONF: config variable c_system set
CONF: Parsing built-in dosemu.conf file.
CONF: config variable version_3_style_used set
CONF: Parsing built-in global.conf file.
CONF: config variable version_3_style_used unset
CONF: config variable version_3_style_used set
CONF: opened include file /etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf
CONF: closed include file /etc/dosemu/dosemu.conf
debug flags: -a+cw
CONF: Disabling use of pentium timer
CONF: dosbanner on
CONF: timer freq=18, update=54925
CONF: CPU set to 386
CONF: 8192k bytes XMS memory
CONF: 2048k bytes EMS memory
CONF: EMS-frame = 0xe000
CONF: DPMI-Server on
CONF: dosemu running on _xterm
SER: directory /var/lock namestub LCK.. binary No
MOUSE: no device specified, type 0 using internaldriver: yes, emulate3buttons: no baudrate: 0
CONF: Keyboard-layout keyb-user
ERROR: Unable to open console to evaluate the keyboard map.
Please specify your keyboard map explicitly via the $_layout option
CONF: Keyboard-layout us
CONF: **** Warning: floppy /dev/fd0 not accessable, disabled
CONF: fastfloppy = 1
CONF: IPX support off
CONF(LPT0) f: (null) c: lpr o: -Plp t: 20 port: 0
CONF: not allowing speaker port access
CONF: Packet Driver disabled.
device: /var/lib/dosemu/freedos type 4 h: -1 s: -1 t: -1 drive C:
CONF: config variable c_system unset
CONF: mostly running as USER: uid=1000 (cached 1000) gid=1000 (cached 1000)
DBG_FD already set
DOSEMU-1.2.2.0 is coming up on Linux version 2.6.15-23-386
CONF: reserving 640Kb at 0x00000 for 'd' (Base DOS memory (first 640K))
CONF: reserving 64Kb at 0xF0000 for 'r' (Dosemu reserved area)
CPU: Stack bottom 0xbfaf9000, top 0xbfb0e000, esp=0xbfb0b6b0
major = 136 minor = 4
CONF: reserving 128Kb at 0xA0000 for 'v' (Video memory)
SERIAL $Header: /cvsroot/dosemu/dosemu/src/base/serial/ser_init.c,v 1.1.2.5 2004/02/10 00:36:26 bartoldeman Exp $
CONF: reserving 64Kb at 0xE0000 for 'E' (EMS page frame)
TIME: using 9154 usec for updating ALRM timer
ERROR: cpu exception in dosemu code outside of VM86()!
trapno: 0x0e errorcode: 0x00000004 cr2: 0x468a5b2d
eip: 0x468a5b2d esp: 0xbfabffb5 eflags: 0x00210282
cs: 0x0073 ds: 0x007b es: 0x007b ss: 0x007b
Page fault: read instruction to linear address: 0x468a5b2d
CPU was in user mode
Exception was caused by non-available page
  VFLAGS(b): 010000001010000010
EAX: 89d2d1e3 EBX: 00003440 ECX: 080f1c21 EDX: 00000003 VFLAGS(h): 00210282
ESI: 00000000 EDI: 0000694d EBP: 00000000
CS: 0073 DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 0000 GS: 0033
FLAGS: SF IF RF IOPL: 0
OOPS : ERROR: Fault handler re-entered! signal=11 _trapno=0xE
ERROR: cpu exception in dosemu code outside of VM86()!
trapno: 0x0e errorcode: 0x00000004 cr2: 0x468a5b23
eip: 0x0805f160 esp: 0x083dd860 eflags: 0x00210202
cs: 0x0073 ds: 0x007b es: 0x007b ss: 0x007b
Page fault: read instruction to linear address: 0x468a5b23
CPU was in user mode
Exception was caused by non-available page
  VFLAGS(b): 010000001000000010
EAX: 00000007 EBX: 468a5b23 ECX: 08179ac0 EDX: 00000000 VFLAGS(h): 00210202
ESI: 0000000a EDI: 083dd8e4...

[William Grant (wgrant)]

Paul, can you please in future attach them, rather than posting them as a comment? Also, once would have been enough.

[Fred H Olson (fholson)]

When I type "dosemu" into a Gnome Terminal 2.14.1 window,
I also get :

 ERROR: Unable to open console to evaluate the keyboard map.
 Please specify your keyboard map explicitly via the $_layout option

I have found a few other symptoms:

If I try it in a smaller window I do get the '...you may want to enlarge your window..." first and it waits for me to hit enter before to proceeding to the other error.

If I log into a virtual terminal (ctrl-alt-f6 for example) and type
dosemu I get different errors (about 15 lines) which I hesitate to type in here completely but it includes:

cpu exception in dosemu code outside of VM86!
...
cpu was in user mode
...
cpu was in user mode
Exception was caused by non-available page

[Fred H Olson (fholson)]

I forgot to mention that dosemu (1.2.1.0) does work from a virtual terminal with Fedora Core 1 (more or less - I dont do so
regularly) Fred

[PaulSchulz (paulschulz)]

Some other things tried:
- Re-build package locally -> no change to output
- Tried older dosemu (1.2.1-3). Has a dependancy on slang1 which is unavailable on dapper.

Enabled debugging..
- Re-built without 'dh-strip -a ' in 'debian/rules'
- Added '-g' to CFLAGS in configure.ac (This didn't seem to make any difference to the output.)

Installed and ran 'gdb dosemu -- -O | tee log.txt'
See attached log file (console control codes have been removed).

[PaulSchulz (paulschulz)]

Generated using 'gdb dosemu.bin -- -O | tee log.txt'.

[PaulSchulz (paulschulz)]

Previosu package 'dosemu_1.2.2-1_i386.deb' also has the same problem.

[Henry Cooper Avel (henrique-ulbrich)]

You should upgrade to the Unstable package.

The problem seems to be the "comcom" command shell, which is outdated and deprecated. Sadly, the Ubuntu team chose to use it.
 :(

The solution is to replace the "comcom" command shell with the new FreeDOS command shell, available here:

http://freedos.sourceforge.net/freecom/packages/082pl3/xmsswap.zip

Just rename the "command.com" that comes with the zip file as
/usr/lib/dosemu/commands/comcom.com .

Relevant bug reports in upstream Debian.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=327153
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=212126;archive=yes

Isn't the Ubuntu dev team supposed to follow the Debian bugtrack closely? This bug was resolved 19.Oct.2005 and closed 19.Feb.2006. Why didn't anyone notice, almost NINE MONTHS later??

[Henry Cooper Avel (henrique-ulbrich)]

Just another comment:

The rotten comcom.com has only 234 bytes. (!!?!??!!!)

The new FreeDOS command.com (renamed to comcom.com) has 93.963 bytes (93 kB).

[Bart Martens (bartm)]

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=352568