The Sundarban
Revealed Feb 2, 2026, 4:30 PM EST
Reduce Lewis is an editor at How-To Geek. He has been the spend of computer systems for 20 years — tinkering with the entirety from the UI to the Windows registry to instrument firmware. Sooner than How-To Geek, he passe Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. In faculty, Reduce made intensive spend of Fortran while pursuing a physics level.
Reduce’s appreciate of tinkering with computer systems extends past work. He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years the spend of Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. He also uses Proxmox to self-host a variety of services and products, along side a Jellyfin Media Server, an Airsonic music server, a handful of game servers, NextCloud, and two Windows virtual machines.
He enjoys DIY initiatives, especially in the event that they contain know-how. He regularly repairs and repurposes old computer systems and hardware for whatever fresh undertaking is at hand. He has designed crossovers for homemade speakers all the way from the basic make to the PCB.
Reduce enjoys the outdoor. When he isn’t working on a computer or DIY undertaking, he’s perhaps to be discovered camping, backpacking, or canoeing.
Raspberry Pis are fantastic whilst you happen to want a low-vitality, versatile instrument for any range of DIY initiatives, along side robotics and easy self-hosted services and products. With a exiguous little bit of labor, they can also turn into a fantastic DOS gaming station.
Why flee DOS for gaming?
When folks say DOS, everybody is reminded of clunky command-line interfaces and a by no means-ending stream of hardware compatibility problems. Then again, DOS also had a large—for the time—catalog of games that fair may no longer flee on fashionable versions of Windows.
In case you want to revisit those classics, you can have to flee DOS.
Utilize a Raspberry Pi for DOS emulation
Even though Raspberry Pis are constructed the spend of Arm, and DOS was designed around the x86 architecture, they’re an gorgeous choice whilst you happen to want to manufacture your self a small, dedicated DOS gaming setup.
One in all the main advantages is their measurement and vitality spend: even whilst you flee Raspberry Pi at maximum vitality, they are going to spend less vitality than a full desktop.
Additionally, their compact measurement means you can easily conceal one whilst you happen to may be constructing a dedicated emulator station.
Credit: Sydney Louw Butler/How-To Geek
Probably the most attention-grabbing draw back is the Arm architecture—it means that there isn’t any chance of running anything DOS-related natively. You have to spend emulation. Fortunately, even the Raspberry Pi 3 is powerful ample to handle emulating DOS, and the Pi 4 and 5 are even larger.
You fair have to make certain you have ample RAM. I’d counsel the 4GB variants, at a minimal.
Settle an operating scheme
In case you may presumably be constructing your Raspberry Pi DOS emulator station, one of essentially the most important issues is a gentle-weight operating scheme.
In constructing my setup, I attempted four different operating systems: DietPi, Raspberry Pi OS Lite, Raspberry Pi OS, and Ubuntu Server, which is my drag-to operating scheme for self-net hosting.
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The grief with the headless versions came all the way down to the lack of a person interface. Ultimately, I opted to fair spend Raspberry Pi OS instead, since it simplified issues dramatically.
If I have been running my setup on a Raspberry Pi 3 instead of a 4, I’d probably fade for DietPi instead, since it is terribly gentle on resources.
Picking and installing a DOS emulator
There are a handful of DOS emulators in the market, nonetheless I narrowed my alternatives all the way down to DOSBox-X and DOSBox Staging.
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They’re both repeatedly updated, reliable, and are popular with the neighborhood. I opted to spend DOSBox-X easiest because that is the version I’ve passe in the past after I played DOS games on my Windows PC.
You probably can be fair fair with both.
To install DOXBox-X, make certain you install Flatpak on your distro, if it isn’t already. Normally, you can fair flee the next two commands:
sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add –if-now no longer-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
As soon as that is performed, you can install DOSBox-X by running:
flatpak install flathub com.dosbox_x.DOSBox-X
Then you undoubtedly may be performed.
Getting DOS games
Unfortunately, environment up a DOS emulator on the Pi is actually easier than getting DOS games to play.
Most DOS games are notion to be abandonware, which means that no person actively sells or maintains them. That makes them buy.
Then again unfair it may seem, that doesn’t mean you can fair download abandoned DOS games wherever you obtain them on the procure both—technically, that is piracy. They may no longer enter the general public domain till the pause of the 21st century.
Happily, some of them have been released and can be acquired from legitimate sources.
Galaxy of Gamers (GOG), has an initiative to make older games, along side some DOS titles, available for download. In case you may presumably be taking a ogle to gather legitimate copies of DOS games DRM-free, that is your easiest wager.
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I had a few ancient floppy disks hanging around a preference of years ago that I’m the spend of for mine.
When you have your DOS games, you fair have to transfer them into the appropriate folder on your Raspberry Pi DOS machine. I achieve mine in my home folder, although you may presumably be now no longer diminutive to that. DOSBox has constructed-in documentation that makes your entire course of extraordinarily easy.
The Raspberry Pi is a great exiguous computer whilst you happen to want to enact low-vitality emulation. In case you want to enact more than fair DOS emulation, you may want to examine out RetroPie.
