Re: Re: Door Games
By: Nightfox to Atreyu on Thu Feb 12 2026 09:55 am

Eventually (and I'm not sure why, exactly), I started to tire of

running a

VM on it all the time, and I also thought it would be a cleaner setup

if

my BBS was running in the Linux host OS so that I wouldn't have to

run the

VM anymore. I moved my BBS to Linux, and I also got DOS doors working

with

dosbox (and I'm now using dosbox2). IMO I don't think it was

exceedingly

difficult (it was actually fairly simple to do, at least with

Synchronet).

As a bonus, my BBS runs faster too now that it's not running in a VM.

I'm

happy with the setup. I'd rather not buy yet another dedicated PC to

run

my BBS with a 32-bit Windows.

While I won't be migrating off Windows any time soon, I do expect I'll be heading to Linux eventually. Also running Synchronet here and ideally also would prefer to do it without VMs or extra PCs, so it's good to know at least one other sysop is having success with such a setup.

I would love to switch to Linux, but the EleBBS binaries won't run external programs and I haven't been able to figure out how to compile the source...

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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Re: Re: Door Games
By: Shurato to Codefenix on Fri Feb 13 2026 06:17 pm

I would love to switch to Linux, but the EleBBS binaries won't run external programs and I haven't been able to figure out how to compile the source...

I started using EleBBS in 2007 (since it's like RemoteAccess, which I used in the 90s), but didn't stick with it.. I just loaded the EleBBS web site, and it's displaying the EleBBS.com header but nothing else. I was curious to see what language it's written in. If it's written in C or C++, you should be able to compile it with gcc or g++. I don't know if it comes with a makefile or anything to make the build process easier. And curious that it won't run external programs..

The reason I didn't stick with it (on Windows at the time) was that it wasn't exiting with the defined errorlevels to run events (such as my nightly maintenance event). I thought that was a bug, but I don't know if there was a way around that.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
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* In a message originally to Shurato, Nightfox said:

Re: Re: Door Games By: Shurato to Codefenix on Fri Feb 13 2026 06:17
pm

I would love to switch to Linux, but the EleBBS binaries won't run external programs and I haven't been able to figure out how to

compile the

source...

I started using EleBBS in 2007 (since it's like RemoteAccess, which I used in the 90s), but didn't stick with it.. I just loaded the EleBBS web
site, and it's displaying the EleBBS.com header but nothing else. I was curious to see what language it's written in. If it's written in C or
C++, you should be able to compile it with gcc or g++. I don't know if it comes with a makefile or anything to make the build process easier. And curious that it won't run external programs..

It's Pascal.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


---
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Re: Re: Door Games
By: Shurato to Nightfox on Sat Feb 14 2026 03:16 pm

It's Pascal.

I did a search online, and Free Pascal Compiler & Lazarus (IDE) come up for Pascal compilers. Maybe that's worth trying out, to build EleBBS on Linux.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
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Re: Re: Door Games
By: Shurato to Nightfox on Sat Feb 14 2026 03:16 pm

It's Pascal.

I did a search online, and Free Pascal Compiler & Lazarus (IDE) come up for Pascal compilers. Maybe that's worth trying out, to build EleBBS on Linux.

The current binaries were compiled with free pascal. I honestly have no idea where to start. The source is on github. I can't find any instructions.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

Hiya,

I have been playing with the sources a long time ago, to change a bit of the look and feel (prompt and filelisting). I found elebbs very stable for up/download at that time.

But concerning compiling, look in the baseinc directory. There are some config files for compiler options, including some instructions. I am not a programmer at all and I was able to compile the sources ... :)

Good luck.

Re: Re: Door Games
By: Shurato to Nightfox on Sat Feb 14 2026 03:16 pm

It's Pascal.

I did a search online, and Free Pascal Compiler & Lazarus (IDE) come for Pascal compilers. Maybe that's worth trying out, to build EleBBS Linux.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
* Origin: -.sOUNDGARDEn.- a green disk full of sound & demos (21:1/116)

Hey Shurato!

On Mon, Feb 16 2026 12:34:00 -0600, you wrote:

The current binaries were compiled with free pascal. I honestly
have no idea where to start. The source is on github. I can't find
any instructions.

How about here, which was the first place that stuck out to me (basically anything with "build" in it) when loading the github page:

https://github.com/mbek/elebbs/tree/master/elebbs/builddoc

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (21:1/700)

* In a message originally to Shurato, Accession said:

Gecko/20100101Thunderbird/140.7.2 Hey Shurato!

On Mon, Feb 16 2026 12:34:00 -0600, you wrote:

The current binaries were compiled with free pascal. I honestly have
no idea where to start. The source is on github. I can't find any instructions.

How about here, which was the first place that stuck out to me (basically anything with "build" in it) when loading the github page:

https://github.com/mbek/elebbs/tree/master/elebbs/builddoc

I'll try again. The last time I tried that, the directory structures didn't match the instructions.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

Re: EleBBS
By: Shurato to Nightfox on Mon Feb 16 2026 06:34 pm

I did a search online, and Free Pascal Compiler & Lazarus (IDE) come up
for Pascal compilers. Maybe that's worth trying out, to build EleBBS on
Linux.

The current binaries were compiled with free pascal. I honestly have no idea where to start. The source is on github. I can't find any instructions.

I haven't used Pascal before, but would a different Pascal compiler not work?

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

I haven't used Pascal before, but would a different Pascal compiler not wor

If you use something else you would need to convert it. Not all pascal code is the same.

... Insects really bug me.

--- Renegade v1.40/DOS
* Origin: The Titantic BBS Telnet - ttb.rgbbs.info (21:1/144)

I haven't used Pascal before, but would a different Pascal compiler not

wor

If you use something else you would need to convert it. Not all pascal code is the same.

I'm willing to do this... What Linux Pascal compiler should I use? Virtual Pascal is supposed to be more compatible with this than Free Pascal.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

On 22 Feb 2026, Shurato said the following...

If you use something else you would need to convert it. Not all pasc code is the same.

I'm willing to do this... What Linux Pascal compiler should I use? Virtual Pascal is supposed to be more compatible with this than Free Pascal.

VP can't be used to build a Linux version of EleBBS. Not without considerable (wasted imo) effort. The Linux version always used FreePascal.

You would have to write a socket library (partially in assembler) yourself and port all sorts of stuff over. And depending on your luck (or the weather) you might not even get a binary that works out the other side. (You might get one
using the linker from OpenWatcom tho? Hooray for complications)
You can certainly go down this rabbit hole, but it's going to be 1000x harder than learning to build it with FreePascal.

Do you get any sort of error output from the copy you have?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

I'm willing to do this... What Linux Pascal compiler should I use? Virtua Pascal is supposed to be more compatible with this than Free Pascal.

You only have 2 options that I know of for Linux crap. Free Pascal and Virtual Pascal.

... Before you see the light, you must die.

--- Renegade v1.40/DOS
* Origin: The Titantic BBS Telnet - ttb.rgbbs.info (21:1/144)

I'm willing to do this... What Linux Pascal compiler should I use?

Virtua

Pascal is supposed to be more compatible with this than Free Pascal.

You only have 2 options that I know of for Linux crap. Free Pascal and Virtual Pascal.

Ok, I'll look into this further with free pascal, since that seems to be
what's used. When the source compiled under that wouldn't run external programs of any kind without major errors (I posted them to Micronet a while back, or FU-Net) I thought it would need to be compiled under VP. I'll test that eventually. I had major problems compiling though, the directory
stucture in the instructions didn't match that of the source.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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