Download and Play MS-DOS games via DOSBox games emulator -

Do your ever get into that sentimental mood that you want to see and play all those DOS games (now retro games )you used to play as a kid? I’m talking about those games which made you addicted to the computer and technology in the first place! Well, playing DOSBox games might be the solution.

Well, when I used to be a school kid we had all these superb, state of the art computers there and we used to study DOS and its basic commands. What I want to say here is that if there were no DOS games at that present time I would never understand any of that DOS gibberish today.

No, I’m not a DOS expert today, but the desire to play a game made me understand some basic computer principles such us how to copy data, extract data, store data on 1.44 inch floppy, how to do simple text file editing and understanding of basics of DOS commands and its syntax without any effort.

It is going to be more than two decades since I executed my first DOS command and today I am still enjoying executing commands on a command line but using a Linux Operating System. GUI is nice and useful but CLI is fast and effective and I never managed shake it off completely

Linux is a very powerful operating system and running old DOS retro games is literally a piece of cake when using a DosBox simulator. The majority of DOS games are now scattered everywhere on the Internet in form of abandonware and waiting for a free download.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to download DOSBox games emulator and other dependencies
How to download and play various DOS games on Linux

Download and Play MS-DOS games via DOSBox games emulator

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions
Category	Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System	Any Linux distro
Software	DosBox games emulator
Other	Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the `sudo` command.
Conventions	# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of `sudo` command $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Install DOSBox on Linux

In order to play a DOS game on a Linux Operating System, we first need to install the DOSBox simulator. If you are using Ubuntu or any other Debian based distribution, simply use the apt command below to install the DOSBox package.

$ sudo apt install dosbox

For certain games, you will also need Wine. The unrar and unzip utilities will also come in handy, in order to extract games from the downloads. Execute the command below to install those packages.

$ sudo apt install unrar unzip wine

Download and Play DOSBox Games on Linux

NOTE
A great place to download DOS games is from bestoldgames.net!

Below, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite DOS games, and the commands that you can use to download the game and start playing it right away. To download the games, we rely on the wget command, so get ready to do a bit of typing in the terminal.

Warcraft 2

Download Warcraft 2:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/warcraft-2.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip warcraft-2.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Warcraft\ 2/
$ dosbox  WAR2.EXE -fullscreen

Dune 2

Download Dune 2:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/dune-2.zip

Extract the game:

$ mkdir Dune2
$ unzip dune-2.zip -d Dune2

And play the game:

$ cd Dune2/
$ dosbox DUNE2.EXE -fullscreen

Mortal Kombat 2

Download Mortal Kombat 2:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/mortal-kombat-2.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip mortal-kombat-2.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Mortal\ Kombat\ 2/
$ dosbox MK2.EXE -fullscreen

Transport Tycoon DeLuxe

Download Transport Tycoon DeLuxe:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/transport-tycoon-deluxe.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip transport-tycoon-deluxe.zip
```
And play the game:
```
$ cd TT_deluxe/
$ dosbox TYCOON.EXE -fullscreen
```
Transport Tycoon DeLuxe on Linux

Simcity 2000

Download Simcity 2000:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/simcity-2000.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip simcity-2000.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Simcity\ 2000/
$ dosbox INSTALL.EXE
$ dosbox SC2000.EXE -fullscreen

Tomb Raider

Download Tomb Raider:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/tomb-raider.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip TombRaider.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd tombraid/
$ dosbox SETUP.EXE
$ dosbox TOMB.EXE -fullscreen

Doom 2

Download Doom 2:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/doom-2.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip doom-2.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Doom2
$ dosbox deice.exe
$ DOOM2LZH.exe
$ dosbox Doom2.exe -fullscreen

Worms+

Download Worms+:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/worms-plus.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip worms-plus.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Worms\ +/
$ dosbox WORMS.BAT -fullscreen

Civilization

Download Civilization:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/civilization.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip civilization.zip
```
And play the game:
```
$ cd Civilization/
$ dosbox CIV.EXE -fullscreen
```
DOSBox games – Civilization on Linux

Grand Theft Auto

Download Grand Theft Auto:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/grand-theft-auto.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip grand-theft-auto.zip
```

And play the game:

$ wine grand-theft-auto-install.exe
$ dosbox ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Grand\ Theft\ Auto/gtados.bat -fullscreen

Battle Chess

Download Battle Chess:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/battle-chess.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip battle-chess.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Battle\ Chess/
$ dosbox CHESS.BAT -fullscreen

Hexxagon

Download Hexxagon:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/hexxagon.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ unzip hexxagon.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Hexxagon/
$ dosbox HEXX.EXE -fullscreen

Crazy Cars 3

Download Crazy Cars 3:

$ wget http://www.bestoldgames.net/download/bgames/crazy-cars-3.zip

Extract the game:
```
$ $ unzip crazy-cars-3.zip
```

And play the game:

$ cd Crazy\ Cars\ 3/
$ dosbox CC3.COM -fullscreen

Closing Thoughts

In this tutorial, we saw how to install DOSBox on Linux, and use the program to play a variety of DOS games. The games listed here are just a few of our favorites, but there are hundreds of others that can be found online and downloaded. As seen here, the process for playing them is pretty much always the same: download, extract, and then launch the .exe file with DOSBox.

Install DOSBox on Linux

Download and Play DOSBox Games on Linux

Warcraft 2

Dune 2

Mortal Kombat 2

Transport Tycoon DeLuxe

Simcity 2000

Tomb Raider

Doom 2

Worms+

Civilization

Grand Theft Auto

Battle Chess

Hexxagon

Crazy Cars 3

Closing Thoughts

Related Linux Tutorials: