I'm considering picking up the classic game Mortal Kombat 2, which was originally released for MS-DOS and most likely came on floppy disks. I'm curious if a USB floppy drive will work with Linux to run this game. Is it just plug and play? Has anyone tried this?
5 Answers
Totally agreed. I recall using a USB floppy drive a couple of years back, but can't remember exactly why. Just be aware that actual floppy hardware is getting rarer, but USB drives should still work fine with Linux.
Connecting a USB floppy drive usually doesn’t require much setup; it should recognize it without issues. But remember, you probably won't be able to play MS-DOS games directly on Linux. Your best bet is to use an emulator like DOSBox, which is great for running those classic titles.
Yes, USB floppy drives generally work on Linux! They're mostly plug and play. However, keep in mind that the actual disks you have may or may not work, depending on the drive and how the disks are formatted. So there might be some trial and error involved.
Honestly, unless you're after the physical disks for nostalgia or collection purposes, I wouldn't bother spending a lot on those old floppies. You can often find playable versions of these games online. I even found Mortal Kombat for DOS that runs in a browser!
If you get your hands on a floppy disk, creating an image of it is easy, and you can use that in VirtualBox or VMware with DOS installed. You can inspect the image or even set it up as a virtual floppy drive to access your old game files.
That sounds super handy! I love that you can still play with the old formats this way.
Yep, DOSBox is perfect for that! I've run several old DOS programs on Linux with it, including Turbo Pascal!