win, dos -- run Windows or DOS on Linux

Syntax

win [ options ] [ winprogram ]

dos [ options ] [ dosprogram ]

Description

win - run Windows on Linux

dos - run DOS on Linux

The win command runs a Windows 95 or Windows 98 environment on Linux.
The dos command runs an MS-DOS environment on Linux.

To manage your Win4Lin configuration, use the Win4Lin Setup GUI. To start the Win4Lin Setup GUI, enter winsetup at the Linux prompt.


NOTE: Windows must be loaded once before using DOS or Windows and each user must install Windows for their own use before using Windows. The root user must load Windows from the Windows installation CD using either the Win4Lin Setup GUI or the loadwindowsCD command line utility.


Once the root user has loaded the Windows installation CD, to start a DOS environment, enter dos at the Linux prompt.

To use Windows, it must be installed by each user. The first time you try to start a Windows environment (and the root user has already loaded the Windows installation CD), you will be given a choice to install Windows for yourself.

To start a Windows environment, enter win at the Linux prompt.

The command line utility winconfig can also be used to manage your Win4Lin configurations, but the Win4Lin Setup GUI is much easier to use.

When using Win4Lin on an X display, the DISPLAY environment variable must be set correctly, as any other X client program requires. If you start a DOS session under X (for example, via xterm) without this set, a limited ASCII-based monochrome DOS session starts.

DOS and Windows options

Below is the list of DOS options for use with the dos and win commands. Specifying these options overrides equivalent options in the standard personal Merge configurations set either by default, or explicitly by using the winconfig command.

See your documentation for further details on the options described below.

+ados_device
Attaches devices to DOS or Windows environments. Most standard devices are automatically attached to your DOS or Windows environment upon startup. However, devices such as COM ports, DOS partitions, or EMS memory may be attached using this option.

dos_device is a token, which is a short name that uniquely identifies the device to the Merge session. Associated with each token is a set of configuration parameters that are defined at the time the token is created (using the winadmin command or the System-Wide Merge Administration option of the Merge Setup utility in the Desktop environment).

The following tokens are available for use with the +a option:

-ados_device
Do not attach a device that is specified in your session configuration.

+b
Specifies that the MS-DOS program is stream-oriented (behaved).

+efile[,file ...]
Interprets one or more config.sys files instead of the one specified in the session configuration. Note that there are no spaces between +e and file.

-e
Does not interpret any config.sys files.

+h
Displays help text.

+k[user:]config
Uses the personal session configuration named config. If the user option is specified, that user's config is used. (For example, to run Windows using tom's session configuration, type win +ktom:win).

You cannot use the +kuser:config option to specify a session configuration belonging to an NIS-administered user other than yourself. See ``The winconfig command'' for more information on personal session configurations.

-l
Starts a DOS environment by booting from the floppy that is inserted in drive A.

+mn
Specifies the total standard memory in megabytes.

+pfile
Runs the DOS batch program file in place of the standard autoexec.bat file. Note that there are no spaces between +p and file.

-p
Does not execute any autoexec.bat files, even any automatically generated ones, Win4Lin normally uses.

+sn
Sets printer timeout to n seconds and overrides any timeout setting for LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 in the personal session configuration. Note: this only applies to DOS printing, not to Windows printing.

+r
Start the session with the initial directory at the root of your personal drive.

-r
Start the session with the initial directory set to the current Linux directory.

-t
For all programs passed as an argument to the dos and win commands, the default is to translate the Linux style path separators (/) to DOS style separators (\), and Linux style switch characters (-) to DOS style switch characters (/). So, the dos dir /etc -w command becomes dir \etc /w before it is passed on to DOS. When the -t option is specified, this translation is disabled, and the command is passed to DOS as is.

+w
Used with a dos command, starts a DOS session using the Windows session configuration. This option is useful when you want to start DOS first and then start Windows from that DOS session.

+x
Runs the session in its own window under X. You can also set the XMERGE environment variable to force the session to come up in its own window.

-x
Ignore the setting of the XMERGE environment variable, and run the session inside the window it is started from.

+z
When running under X, this option forces the session to immediately zoom (take over the whole display).
Note:The "zoom" feature is not supported on Linux systems.

-z
When running under X, this option disables immediate zooming of the session, so that the user is prompted to zoom when necessary.

X resources

Merge makes use of some X resources, mostly for color definitions. For a complete list of resources used by Merge, refer to the file "/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Win4Lin".

Files

/bin/win
Runs Windows 95 and Windows 98.

/bin/dos
Runs MS-DOS.

/etc/default/merge
Global Win4Lin settings.

/opt/win4lin
Directory containing Win4Lin files.

/var/win4lin
Directory containing Win4Lin files.

See also

winconfig(1)
winadmin(1)
loadwindowsCD(1)
installwindows(1)
Win4Lin User's Guide

© 2000 TreLOS, Inc.

2000/01/10