After installing Leap 15
Dosemu works and I’m usually accessing the “drive_c” directory, but where I can try running the Dbase program.
it is immediately aborted and the message below appears
Yes, I have for many years used the dBase program from Ashton.
I use it for my business and I have hundreds of codes to track sales orders, track inventories and many more jobs.
DBase has worked very well with Linux until Leap 43
But now, whit Leap 15 is giving this error that I have listed above
I have not tested using DOSBox now, but before with Leap 43 or smaller it did not work
I still have no solution to the problem.
I have other machines with Leap 42.3 and dosemu works without problems
For being without any help, I tried to copy all the folders with the word “dosemu” that I found in the machines 42.3 for the 15
I have completely copied the folders and subfolders
/home/sergio/.dosemu
/etc/dosemu
But it did not solve the problem.
Are there more folders to copy?
Wow,
You’ve been living on borrowed time for a very long time now…
I wouldn’t have expected a DOS emulator type application to still be working when its last code modification was back in 2007 (more than 10 years ago, when the Linux kernel was still monolithic)
I’m going to suspect that your version of dBase is also similarly old…
I took a brief look at today’s dBase (which has undergone numerous ownership changes over the years), don’t know if you have any interest in upgrading to something new… Besides the cost, today’s dBase now runs only on Windows, so it would probably require looking at a full WINE instead of a simple DOS emulator
Now, back to the error you’re seeing…
I don’t know that you’re going to find an easy way to fix that error… An “out of bounds” error like that suggests a fairly fundamental problem, and as I stated up top I’m short of amazed that a program like this didn’t throw critical errors years ago. You may be forced to run your application in a 42.3 beyond EOL in a virtual machine if you decide not to upgrade or migrate your database to something else more current and supported but this is something you should consider only as a stopgap to buy you some time as you look for a permanent fix.
I don’t know what version of dBase you’re running, but that and however you’re using it (what is your frontend?) would probably determine what your options are to migrate to another database… whether it’s a modern dBase or free, commonly used alternatives like MariadB, MySQL, sqlite, more. You may wish to consider what shortcomings you’ve bumped up against in the past when considering a possible new migration target.
If you want to stay with your dBase, you might also try running it in WINE or some other similar, currently supported emulation.
I develop in Xbase++ a Clipper/dBase III clone. It in theory should run old dBase III code in console mode in Windows. But it is not free or cheap. There was and may still be a dBase language called Harbor which had a native Linux compiler. Google “harbor Linux”
One solution which is what I use is to run in a Windows VM. If you restrict Net access you can run old Windows such as XP in a VM safely.
Thank you very much, your guidance was helpful but I found the solution.
To solve the problem, it was enough to delete the “dosemu” package that comes with openSUSE 15.1 and install the package that comes with openSUSE version 42.3.
Anyone experiencing this issue can download this older version of “dosemu” from the link below:
Given the above, I suspect there is something wrong with the “dosemu” package provided with the openSUSE 15.5 version.
Dear administrators, please appreciate this point.
Dear, i think that any idea about migrate dbase to other plataform is OFF topic, and do not help to fix dosemu.
I use a special software under DOSEMU and with the last upgrade and DOSEMU does not work anymore. This is a problem to my work.
Sadly dosbox is extremelly slow and unusable for me.
Please apologyze my disruption, and get a excelent new year 2020.
Best regards
Christian
Many months passed and I saw that Dosemu still doesn’t work on new versions of OpenSUSE
I would very much like to report this problem, but for that it is necessary to have a lot of knowledge and that is not within my reach.
Please, could any good soul do this for all of us who love our old software?
Please understand, it’s not just love, I have more than 3 thousand programs made in the DBase language, I’m 76 years old and I’m no longer willing to start all over again.
IIRC the problem is that the kernel dropped all support for 16-bit.
Do you know if your 16-bit apps can run in 32-bit?
My guess is that best bet is to run a 16-bit OS virtualized, I haven’t checked recently whether there is any issue running DOS in something like VBox (I can’t see why not) or if QEMU would be required.
This is not the problem because DBase brings other resources in separate .exe programs and they all work in Dosemu.
However, when DBase is opened, a stack overflow occurs.
Dosemu of OpenSUSE Version 42.3 works perfectly, it is all 64 bit
.
Dear Christian, your special software may work again if you install the Dosemu package whit OpenSUSE version 42.3
Here is the address where you can download the package
I believe that dosemu has stopped working, but only in applications that use a lot of memory and the error “Stack Overflow” occurs.
I also believe that this problem was created by a lack of care and this needs to be reported to those who maintain OpenSUSE.
Only this is a task for people with a lot of knowledge.
LibreOffice only opens a DBase database but does not run lines of code.
You certainly don’t know DBase. This is something for us old people.
It is not just a database. It is a programming language. I have about 3 thousand programs and they add up to many thousands of programming lines.
This is why I insist on continuing to use DBase
Whilst I sympathise with your plight, I doubt maintaining compatibility with legacy software is very high on the (largely volunteer) community of “those who maintain OpenSUSE”.
If DBase runs under dosemu using openSUSE 42.3, your easiest option might be to devote a machine (or dual boot) to just running that.
Longer term you really need to look to migrate to a currently supported database solution.
If you want to run dosemu in 42.3, why not do it in a 42.3 virtual machine?
If you don’t have a 42.3 install source, ask and a link will be posted.
I assume when you have 42.3 sources configured, it’ll also provide dosemu packages released at that time as well.
This is one of the primary uses of virtualization…
To run old and unsupported systems and apps in a relatively (not completely!) safe way, isolated from other networked machines.
BTW - Specifically relating to dosemu (and not other dos era environments where it’s YMMV), in 2004 dosemu apparently made some changes to port to x64. The current version of dosemu has not changed since 2007, you can take a look at the history of dosemu openSUSE packaging but I doubt anything significant has likely changed.