1034
Oh, Linux, you hilarious construction!
Just stumbled upon the solution to directing DOSBox to the correct directory when mounting in Linux. I was googling around trying to find out how to mount a directory located on a harddrive other than the main, boot drive and utterly chanced upon the solution. My filepath was completely correct (which I’m a little bit proud of) but the MAJOR difference from Windows isn’t (just) that drives have different designations, it’s that CASE MATTERS.
I had used a capital letter as part of the name of one of the extra harddrives; using the ‘wrong’ case wouldn’t have mattered under Windows when writing a filepath (and drives have letters, rather than names). That one letter being the wrong case was enough for DOSBox (under Linux) to throw up a ‘unknown file or directory’ error…
Today has been a sharpening of the learning curve.
Anyway, now to figure out how to modify the DOSBox conf file in Linux (again, this was a doddle in Windows…)
1211
A sidequest appears!
I booted up the old Dell laptop to see if I had a dosbox conf file on there (I did not) but when moving it around, noticed it rattled, which is never a good sound for a laptop to make… Inside, I found a screw, completely out of the threaded hole where it should be, and I have no idea how it came loose; it’s not one I ever would have touched (the only other work I’ve done inside this laptop is securing the loose m.2 drive, whose screw is literally at the very opposite corner of the machine).
Hmm, actually, thinking about that previous repair, maybe this second fault is indicative of generally shoddy construction: the wrong-headed bolt for the harddrive, and this other bolt loosening over time.
Oh well, keeps me busy.
1349
…but back to DOSBox!
The conf file is located here:
/home/bananaworld/.dosbox
This goes near the beginning:
fullresolution=1501x1126
windowresolution=1501x1126
output=opengl
(Resolution extrapolated from 640x480 using: https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/resolution-scale)
This goes right at the end:
mount c /media/bananaworld/2Store465/games
mount d /media/bananaworld/2Store465/gamesnot
C:
(NOTICE THE CAPITAL LETTER IN THE PATH!!!1!)
I played Transport Tycoon the other day in that ‘DOS Browser’ thing, but couldn’t save the game, so that was useless. Next came today: trying it in DOSBox, which worked fine (after I’d downloaded the original DOS version rather than the Windows version) but it was the older TTD.
Some googling reminded me of the existence of OpenTTD, and I had a look for a Linux version; of course it exists (nerds!) which led me to looking for it in the software centre; of course it’s in there!
Oh, Linux: equally confounding & astounding.
1612
Just when I thought I was done swearing for the day, Linux brings me another ‘joy’...
For more than twenty years, I’ve had the same printout attached to many different computer desks and/or monitors; it’s a list of Alt codes for quick reference. It allows you quickly see which numbers to type in, while holding down the Alt key, to get a whole variety of special characters. It’s been my only consistent piece of computer equipment (which is quite a cool thought) because it has been persistently useful, and, crucially, unchanging.
Until now.
Those super-useful shortcuts for putting in accented letters, symbols, powers, copyrights, etc are now all completely useless, thanks to it not working at all in Linux.
I couldn’t believe that my ancient scrap of parchment was now defunct, but I wasn’t about to give up; there must be a way to insert Alt codes in Linux using a simple set of keystrokes.
Ha ha ha.
Not only is there not a method that would allow me to use the combos I’ve memorised over decades, there just isn’t an easy way to do it at all… unless you want to go down a massive faffabout-hole. How can something so fundamental & useful in Windows be completely absent in Linux…?
Ok, that’s not strictly true; what I’m using is what’s available: the Character Map. Yup, go find the character you want in a completely separate program and zarking copy ‘n’ paste it over to where you need it.
How deeply irritating.
