Liberatine Containers - DosBox

ctyler1984

Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this. On OTA-15 (BQ M10FHD) I am running OTR (On The Road) which appears to simply be a front-end for Liberatine. Thus far I have been able to create containers and use apt-get to install applications (both X11 based and command line). However when I attempt to install DosBox, when i execute from the command line a garbled screen appears and I have to forcibly reboot the tablet. Launching it from the home screen the full screen app launcher appears (black with DOSBOX icon) then immediately closes.

I have seen on YouTube that this has ran at some point on Ubuntu Touch. I am curious if anyone has had any experience with getting this working or any advice (where to find the logs, etc..). Thanks for any help!

Chris

doniks

@ctyler1984 said in Liberatine Containers - DosBox:

Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this. On OTA-15 (BQ M10FHD) I am running OTR (On The Road) which appears to simply be a front-end for Liberatine.

Never heard of On The Road or any Libertine front-end. Do you have a reference to it?

Thus far I have been able to create containers and use apt-get to install applications (both X11 based and command line). However when I attempt to install DosBox, when i execute from the command line a garbled screen appears and I have to forcibly reboot the tablet. Launching it from the home screen the full screen app launcher appears (black with DOSBOX icon) then immediately closes.

Do you find related logfiles in ~/.cache/upstart ?

I have seen on YouTube that this has ran at some point on Ubuntu Touch.

Link?

I am curious if anyone has had any experience with getting this working or any advice (where to find the logs, etc..). Thanks for any help!

Chris

ctyler1984

On the road can be found here
https://open.uappexplorer.com/app/ontheroad.emanuelesorce

YouTube Reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOsUJHVaiUY

I will check the logs and try to get some more information later today (work ATM).

doniks

@ctyler1984 said in Liberatine Containers - DosBox:

On the road can be found here
https://open.uappexplorer.com/app/ontheroad.emanuelesorce

YouTube Reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOsUJHVaiUY

I will check the logs and try to get some more information later today (work ATM).

Interesting. Thanks for the links!

Though, I don't really get yet what exactly otr is, or how it ties with libertine....

However, can you try without otr? Either way, I guess the logs are next.

ctyler1984

I believe I have solved my own problem.

I did not have a full libertine install done (no write access to the tablet) so chances are a lot of per-requisites were missing. I think OTR can handle libertine containers in addition to the other stuff that it does, but more was missing.

Doing the following below, I was able to successfully install DOSBox on my BQ tablet. Couple of catches is from what little I have tested it can be sluggish (especially when multitasking with a background terminal session (from my computer), and the sound does have some remnants (distortion post making sound if that makes any sense). I was also able to mount my home directory (mount ~/Downloads/dosbox) and copy over my apps and games with no problem. I have only tested this with a bluetooth keyboard. There may be a much better way of doing this, however I have yet to see any info on doing this. I principally wanted to play some old dos games (and wordperfect lol).

Steps to install DOSBox on Ubuntu Touch

Computer Side

I had magic-device-tool installed (for Phablet-tools and other pre-requisites)

Ubuntu Touch Side

Enable read-write access to install libertine support (this will reboot tablet)
phablet-config writable-image
Install Libertine Software
apt-get install libertine libertine-scope xmir python3-libertine-chroot
Create libertine DOSBox container
libertine-container-manager create -i dosbox -t chroot
Install DOSBox in libertine container
libertine-container-manager install-package -i dosbox -p dosbox
Configure DOSBox preferences
nano /home/phablet/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf

I changed the following settings (all under SDL)

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=true
fullresolution=1920x1080
output=overlay

Setting the full screen resolution to the max (1920x1200) caused DOSBox to crash. I chose 1920x1080 to get the most coverage on screen (this can obviously be tweaked)

Tonoxis

[I was originally going to ask here if you had a UBports image or the original Canonical images installed, but after re-reading, I noticed that you had Canonical's image installed (since UBports is at OTA-3 now). So feel free to disregard this post, I'm not discarding it simply because it could be of use to other people further on.]

If you were using a UBports image, you shouldn't have needed to reinstall the libertine and xmir components, as they appear to come installed by default. Libertine itself also has very little in the way of dependencies. [Like above, this was before I re-read the OP]

@ctyler1984 Also, you should remove the libertine-scope package and install it from the Ubuntu Store. I'm not entirely sure if the scopes are the same version, but using the click is safer since it can receive upgrades. If you receive any OTAs from UBports or Canonical (I know, this one isn't happening), the OTA will overwrite dpkg's info files and cause the system to believe the libertine-scope package isn't actually installed, even though it is, which can cause issues when attempting to reinstall, remove or even upgrade it. (This isn't theoretical, it does actually happen, I've run into it multiple times while Canonical was still the development team since I use a modified kernel for the Nexus 7 so I can run QEMU-x86/WINE on the tablet.)

Also for future reference, you can remount without making the whole image fully writable by using sudo mount -o remount,rw / from the normal terminal. I know this is all a moot point now since you've solved your own issue, but hopefully it will help someone else in the future.

The TL;DR:

For new users to Ubuntu Touch: If you have installed from the UBports branch, libertine and it's components come installed and ready to use by default (except for the scope, you need to find that in the Ubuntu Store, or install libertine-scope using APT [Not recommended due to possible package management issues later on]
You shouldn't install packages if you're expecting to be able to OTA update, it WILL cause issues with dpkg after an OTA, they might not be visible immediately, but it will definitely show up if you attempt to upgrade, reinstall or remove packages installed before the OTA that aren't a part of the default system. I'm not telling you not to do it (that would be major hypocrisy on my part), I'm just genuinely recommending that you don't.
You don't need to permanently make the system writable (yes, it can be reversed by removing the .writable-image file under /userdata but that's more work than it needs to be, you can easily mount the rootfs read/write (and do it without rebooting, saving some time) by performing sudo mount -o remount,rw / from the terminal.

I know the post is long, that's why I did a TL;DR, sorry for the wall of text.