Just some info if anyone is interested on putting up a Synchronet BBS with Dosemu onto a rPi4.
Decided to write this little help file for anyone who may be wanting to put up a Synchronet BBS up on a
Raspberry Pi 4B.
First, the instructions on the Synchronet wiki for Raspberry Pi installation are good and got me real close
to getting a working system up. Unfortunately, the instructions were a bit outdated for my setup.
The output of uname for my setup is as follows:
$ uname -a
Linux rPi4-pi 6.18.50+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.18.50-1+rpt1 (2026-09-11) aarch64 GNU/Linux
For this setup I attempted following the instructions on the wiki page. It ended in a failed
compile as the make looked for 'archive.h' which it could not find. Rather than try to find a way
to ensure the files it needed were actually there, I thought, 'The newer Raspberry OSes are just
a modification of a Debian Linux release, but, close to being an Ubuntu release' I figured I would follow
the Unix/Linux installation page instructions, which was exactly what I needed to do.
DOSEMU On a Raspberry Pi 4 with 64 Bit OS
Again, here, the wiki at
https://wiki.synchro.net/howto:raspbian_install was a great place to
start, but, did not enable me to get a working DOSEMU setup. To get one up and working, I had to
modify what is stated in the wiki. Most of what follows is duplicated from the wiki:
First, add the public key
$ sudo curl -sS 'https:/keyserver.ubuntu.ccom/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xebe1b5ded2ad45d6' | gpg --dearmor > /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ubuntu-dosemu2-ppa.gpg
This step seems to be a challenge for some people so you may have to break it into a couple of steps
(this is what I used)
$ curl -sS '
https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xebe1b5ded2ad45d6' | gpg --dearmor > /tmp/dosemupgp.txt
$ sudo mv /tmp/dosemupgp.txt /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ubuntu-dosemu2-ppa.gpg
Second, create a source file
$ sudo echo "deb
https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/dosemu2/ppa/ubuntu kinetic main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dosemu2
(This caused issues with my setup as the newer apt program was looking for a different
extension and format for the file. I ended up creating a file named dosemu.sources in
my home directory using the following format and doing a 'sudo' copy:
Use your favorite text editor to create-
Types: deb
URIs:
https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/dosemu2/ppa/ubuntu
Suites: noble
Components: main
Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ubuntu-dosemu2-ppa.gpg
Notice - I used the noble Suite, rather than suggested kinetic Suite. The kinetic Suite gave me 'unsigned'
errors when doing an update, so I selected the noble Suite. The resolute and stonking Suites also gave me
errors. I did not try questing Suite.
Then I just copied the file -
$ sudo cp ~/dosemu2.sources /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dosemu2.sources
The rest just follows the wiki.)
Next, run apt update to make sure there are no issues
$ sudo apt update
Then install the DosEMU2 files
$ apt install dosemu2
A number of files will be installed.
(I will not include the Nelgin configuration instructions, as the wiki covers this.)
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