PCLinuxOS - Playing those DOS games in Linux

At home my elder brother still uses an old i386 PC though he has a brand new Compaq. That i386 machine has a history - it was the first PC ever in my village and it was the first machine on which I laid my hands on. I learned those nitty DOS commands on it. It’s aged more than 15 years old now, but still functional.

My 10 year old nephew, Sonu will be visiting me at Delhi on 13th of October. He is an avid games freak. Each time he called me on phone he reminded me to load some games - mainly those age-old DOS games that he plays on the i386 - paratrooper, aliens, antactic, blocks, mario, digger, ace speeder, dangerous road etc.

I was in a difficult situation "how can I install those DOS games on my PCLinuxOS 2007 machine, a brand new VIA-Intel hybrid PC?". I browsed forums, googled for a while, punched the keywords "linux dos games", "how to play dos games in pclinuxos, linux" etc. And then got search results related to Wine and DOSemu. Installed those packaged from PCLinuxOS repository through synaptic. And I am there, I could play almost all those games.

(For a wholesome knowledge of DOSemu, please refer this great guide: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DOSEMU-HOWTO.html. This guide will help you how to emulate any DOS applications in Linux.)

Now I can understand, DOS games are not that bad, except for their graphics. Even I could not pass 3 levels of Ace Speeder and Dangerous Road. Alas! If I could know about these software earlier!