Playing "Little Big Adventure" in Linux

Many years ago I played the game Little Big Adventure but never got around to finishing it. Now that MSDOS has long gone I set about running it on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). The game plays perfectly but requires a little tweaking.

1. Create an ISO From your CD
$ dd if=/dev/dvd of=/home/yourusername/.dosbox/lba.iso

2. Install DOSBox
$ sudo aptitude install dosbox

3. Configure DOSBox
Create a directory for the DOSBox C drive:
$ mkdir /home/yourusername/cdrive

Edit the file ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf:
$ nano ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.73.conf

C Drive
Add this line at the end of the config file to make the C drive mount when you start DOSBox:
mount c /home/yourusername/.dosbox/cdrive

Sound Changes
When I first ran the game the sound was very glitchy and horrible. I made the following changes in the config file and it sounded perfect (8 bit tastic).

In [mixer]
rate=44100
blocksize=8192
prebuffer=50

In [sblaster]
oplrate=44100


Load LBA on Startup (optional)
If you want to use DOSBox only for LBA then you might as well load LBA automatically when DOSBox starts. To do this add the following lines to the bottom of the config file:
imgmount d /home/yourusername/.dosbox/lba.iso -t iso -fs iso
c:
cd relent
relent

4. Installing the Game
Start DOSBox
$ dosbox

From this point on run commands in the DOSBox window.

Install the Game
Z:\> d:
D:\> install

Choose to install to C drive

Configure the Game
Z:\> c:
C:\> cd relent
C:\RELENT> setup

Set the following options:
> Music Sound Card Configuration
>> Sound Blaster 16 (OPL3)
>>> 220h
> FX Sound Card Configuration
>> Sound Blaster 16
>>> 220h
> Speech Configuration
>> Keep Speech Files on Hard Disk - YES
> Save Parameters
> Quit to DOS

Exit from DOSBox
C:\RELENT> exit

Copy the Voice Files
Back in the Linux terminal copy the voice files to the C drive folder.
$ cp -R /media/cdrom/LBA/VOX /home/yourusername/.dosbox/cdrive/RELENT

6. Start the Game
$ dosbox
If you chose not to start the game on DOSBox startup then run the following in the DOSBox window.
Z:\> c:
C:\> cd relent
C:\RELENT> relent

Enjoy