Chris
I'm looking for something that will run Windows/DOS command line utilities under Linux. Is there anything other than WINE nowadays?
Short answer: Try them both (Dosbox and Dosemu) but from my experience dosemu is much more useful for anything but the simplest dos program and is the most flexible and configurable if any fiddling about is needed.
Long answer: I have one old DOS program that I have used for years. It is a simple home accounts program which opens several files at once. I tried Dosbox but it wasn't successful - although it seems to be very successful for running many old games, according to the website.
I then tried Dosemu and it was perfect. Since it runs a full version of DOS (Freedos in this case but other versions can be used if required) you have full access to config.sys and autoexec.bat if needed. In fact it worked for me without any tweaking at all, even reading and writing to the floppy drive. There may have been some simple configuration to carry out - I don't remember any details but what I do remember is that it was installed and running like a charm very quickly and easily.
I am using Mandrake and simply installed the latest rpm from the dosemu website. Version 1.2.1 Dosemu has come a very long way in the two or three years since I last tried it.
I run it as xdosemu in a terminal window on a kde desktop. It opens a new window with a C:> prompt. The 'C:' drive is in fact a directory in my home dir and this contains the batch files, data dirs and program dirs required. Even my existing batch file which backs-up data to the floppy drive worked without any alteration.
Since you have a full version of dos, all the old command line utils are there for batch file use etc.
All in all, I was very impressed.
HTH Syd