Installing the Bochs x86 Emulator

Bochs emulates an x86 PC. This means you can do stuff like run MS-DOS, FreeDOS, or Windows 95 in it, as well as GNU/Linux. The idea is that you can run multiple machines on one box. VMware is the 100 pound gorilla here, and is much, much faster than Bochs. Let's compile and install bochs. We are using version 2.2.6:

# ./configure --prefix=/opt/bochs/
# make && make install
.
.
.
opt/bochs//share/doc/bochs; else install -m 644 ./$i 
/opt/bochs//share/doc/bochs; fi; done
rm -f /opt/bochs//share/doc/bochs/README
cat ./build/linux/README.linux-binary ./README > 
/opt/bochs//share/doc/bochs/README
install -m 644 ./.bochsrc /opt/bochs//share/doc/bochs
/bochsrc-sample.txt
bash-2.05a#

The sample bochsrc works quite well out of the box:

#cd /opt/bochs/
#cp share/doc/bochs/bochsrc-sample.txt ./bochsrc

We only had to change this line:

ata0-master: type=disk, path="c.img", mode=flat, cylinders=1015, heads=16, spt=63

The details about creating this file are here. Run bochs:

# ls        
bin  bochsout.txt  bochsrc  c.img  man  parport.out  share
# pwd    
/opt/bochs
bash-2.05a# bin/bochs
============================================
                       Bochs x86 Emulator 2.2.6
              Build from CVS snapshot on January 29, 2006
============================================
00000000000i[     ] reading configuration from bochsrc
------------------------------
Bochs Configuration: Main Menu
------------------------------

This is the Bochs Configuration Interface, where you can describe the
machine that you want to simulate.  Bochs has already searched for a
configuration file (typically called bochsrc.txt) and loaded it if it
could be found.  When you are satisfied with the configuration, go
ahead and start the simulation.

You can also start bochs with the -q option to skip these menus.

1. Restore factory default configuration
2. Read options from...
3. Edit options
4. Save options to...
5. Begin simulation
6. Quit now

Please choose one: [5] 
bash-2.05a#

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