Installing FreeDOS in VirtualBox

Chapter 1: Prepare a virtual machine for FreeDOS in VirtualBox
Chapter 2: Special settings for FreeDOS
Chapter 3: Connect the FreeDOS install CD
Chapter 4: Create a FreeDOS partition with Free FDISK
Chapter 5: Install FreeDOS
Chapter 6: Exchange files between host and guest
Chapter 7: Known Bugs: 1. Heat
Chapter 8: Known Bugs: 2. UIDE.SYS
Chapter 9: Known Bugs: 3. Keyboard driver

Preparations

1. Install VirtualBox (if you haven't already). It can be found here. If you use a GNU/Linux distribution as host, please install VirtualBox with your package manager (like yum, apt, aptitude etc.). Guest additions are not available for DOS guests, so the Open Source Edition of VirtualBox will do fine.
2. Download FreeDOS. The FreeDOS installation file should be a CD image (with .ISO file extension). Save this to a permanent location on your computer.

Add a new FreeDOS virtual machine

• Run VirtualBox

• Click "New". The "New Virtual Machine Wizard" opens.

• Give your Virtual Machine a name.

• Select the amount of memory. The default of 32 MB is fine for me.

• Select the size of the virtual hard disk. The default of 500 MB is fine for me.

• Select the format of the virtual hard disk. VirtualBox uses VDI as default.

• Choose if the size of your disk should be dynamically allocated. FreeDOS works fine with that.

• Give the virtual disk a name. Default is to give it the same name as the machine.

• Confirm your settings.

• The new FreeDOS virtual machine is added to your list of virtual machines.