Flatpak for DOSBox-Staging

Official Flatpak support is available for DOSBox-Staging, a cross-platform x86/DOS emulation package.

Installation

This Flatpak is available on Flathub. After following the Flatpak setup guide, you can install it by entering the following command in a terminal:

flatpak install flathub io.github.dosbox-staging -y

Once the Flatpak is installed, you can run DOSBox-Staging using your desktop environment's application launcher, or by running flatpak run io.github.dosbox-staging in a terminal.

Updating

This Flatpak follows the latest stable DOSBox-Staging version. To update it, run the following command in a terminal:

flatpak update

Limitations

• For security reasons, this Flatpak is sandboxed and only has access to the user's Home folder. You should place any files you need within DOSBox-Staging in that folder (or in a sub-folder). Alternatively you can allow additional access with the override command. But note that this does not work for all directories as some (like /usr) have special restrictions. For instance, to allow access to /run/media where USB devices are typically mounted, run the following command:
  • flatpak override --filesystem=/run/media io.github.dosbox-staging
• Likewise, there is no way to access system installed MIDI soundfonts under /usr. If you want to use such soundfonts, copy them into your home directory and specify the location in your DOSBox-Staging config file.
• The SDL2 libraries against which DOSBox-Staging is built are provided by flatpak. This build only supports PulseAudio and dummy sound options, and likewise only supports X11, Wayland and dummy video options.
  • You will need a working PulseAudio (or PipeWire) setup on the host, or DOSBox-Staging will not start. If you don't care for audio, you can use the dummy SDL audio driver once you installed the flatpak by running:
    • flatpak override --env=SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy io.github.dosbox-staging
  • You will need a working X or XWayland setup on the host. Running from a console will not work, as the SDL2 build does not have kms or directfb output enabled.

Please create an issue if you find any other limitations specific to flatpak that should be documented here.

Configuration files

Under the default Flatpak configuration, the DOSBox-Staging configuration files are located in ~/.var/app/io.github.dosbox-staging/config/dosbox/. To access it with a graphical file manager, you'll have to make hidden folders visible.

The config file will not initially exist after installing DOSBox-Staging. You can create one from the DOSBox-Staging command line by running config -wcd.

Building from source

Install Git, follow the flatpak-builder setup guide then enter the following commands in a terminal:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/flathub/io.github.dosbox-staging.git
cd io.github.dosbox-staging
flatpak install flathub org.freedesktop.Sdk//21.08 -y
flatpak-builder --force-clean --install --user -y build-dir io.github.dosbox-staging.yaml

If all goes well, the Flatpak will be installed after building. You can then run it using your desktop environment's application launcher.

You can speed up incremental builds by installing ccache and specifying --ccache in the flatpak-builder command line (before build-dir).