REL-i-kwaynt — a portmanteau of relic and quaint.

A preservation hub for classic DOS and Amiga games that happens to launch. One catalog, one install command, one launch button — plus the maps, hint sheets, and walkthroughs that gave these games their flavour, rendered right alongside each game.

Reliquaint is a Linux launcher built on top of DOSBox-Staging (DOS) and FS-UAE (Amiga). You bring your own legally-acquired game files; Reliquaint handles the configuration, mounting, sidecars (FluidSynth for MIDI), and a small catalog of curated metadata.

Subscribe to the official reliquaint-core tap to get a curated starter set of classic DOS and Amiga titles — Quest for Glory I–IV, King's Quest I–V, Space Quest I–VI, Police Quest 1–4, and the Amiga Forever game collection. The launcher's tap model supports multiple community-maintained taps with priority-based conflict resolution.

Taps can also ship companion content — per-game walkthroughs, maps, and hint sheets, written in Markdown and browsable in a "Guides" panel on each game's page. It renders entirely offline through a strict, sandboxed pipeline (no remote resources, no scripts).

It does not acquire game files for you. It does not circumvent DRM. The user provides their own copies; the launcher tells them where to put them.

Prerequisites are documented in docs/prerequisites.md — DOSBox-Staging (Flatpak), FluidSynth, and FS-UAE.

Each release attaches prebuilt .deb (Debian/Ubuntu/Raspberry Pi OS) and .rpm (Fedora/RHEL) packages for both x86_64 and aarch64/arm64 architectures. An AppImage for cross-distro compatibility is also attached for x86_64 only (arm64 ships as .deb/.rpm).

Install with sudo apt install ./Reliquaint_<version>_<arch>.deb or sudo dnf install ./Reliquaint-<version>-1.<arch>.rpm. Note that on arm64 we only guarantee the launcher itself builds — actually running games still depends on the emulator stack (DOSBox-Staging, FS-UAE, FluidSynth) being available for your architecture; see docs/prerequisites.md.

git clone https://github.com/syraenix/reliquaint.git
cd reliquaint
cargo install --path launcher/src-tauri

This installs the reliquaint binary to ~/.cargo/bin/. Make sure that's on your PATH.

The launcher doesn't ship game files. Once you've obtained your own copy (see each entry's "How to obtain" buttons in the GUI for legitimate sources):

# Extract / copy the game's files into a directory of your choice, then:
reliquaint install qfg1-ega ~/games/qfg1-ega
reliquaint run qfg1-ega

If you have games already laid out at ~/games/<id>/ from before:

reliquaint migrate-installs

This scans for any catalog entry whose id matches a subdirectory of ~/games/ and registers each one in a single pass.

For DOS or Amiga games we don't have a manifest for, point the wizard at the directory and it will inspect, propose a draft, and write it to your local tap at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/reliquaint/tap/:

reliquaint add ~/games/my-custom-game            # interactive prompt
reliquaint add ~/games/my-custom-game --yes      # accept the draft as-is
reliquaint add ~/games/my-custom-game --platform amiga   # override detection

Or in the GUI: click the + Add game button in the header, pick the directory, review the form, save.

The new entry shows up alongside subscribed-tap games with a small CUSTOM badge. Tweak it later via:

reliquaint where my-custom-game     # print on-disk paths for hand-editing
reliquaint remove my-custom-game    # delete the manifest, sibling .conf, and install record

When the manifest works well for you, send it upstream so others can use it:

reliquaint submit my-custom-game --clipboard
# Then paste into tap/catalog/<platform>/<id>.toml in a PR against this repo.

Or in the GUI: open the entry's detail view and click Submit upstream — it copies the canonical manifest to your clipboard and opens GitHub on the right "new file" path.

reliquaint list                       # tabular, grouped by collection
reliquaint list --platform dos
reliquaint list --installed
reliquaint list --format json         # for scripting
reliquaint                            # opens the GUI

The GUI gives you per-entry cards with year + developer, full metadata + description on detail view, "Get on GOG / Steam / …" buttons drawn from the catalog's [acquisition] block, and a live diagnostic panel that streams launcher tracing events alongside the emulator's own stdout/stderr.

reliquaint doctor          # host deps + per-install checks + orphan records
reliquaint -v list         # tracing at DEBUG; use -vv for TRACE
RUST_LOG=trace reliquaint list

In the GUI, the ⚕ Doctor button in the header surfaces the same checks plus per-row "Fix this" buttons for missing apt/flatpak dependencies.

The first time you run Reliquaint, a prompt offers to subscribe to the official reliquaint-core tap. You can also manage subscriptions manually:

reliquaint tap add reliquaint-core      # subscribe to the official tap
reliquaint tap add https://github.com/…/my-tap   # or any URL
reliquaint tap list                     # show subscribed taps
reliquaint tap sync                     # pull latest commits for all taps
reliquaint tap remove my-tap            # unsubscribe

The Taps panel (⊞ Taps button in the GUI) provides the same controls visually.

Catalog contributions go to the reliquaint-core repository. Clone it, drop a TOML file into catalog/<platform>/<id>.toml matching the schema in docs/schema.md, add any per-game shipped .conf next to it, and open a PR there. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full walkthrough.

• docs/schema.md — TOML schemas (catalog entries, install records, tap metadata, user config)

• Code — MPL-2.0. Weak copyleft: file-level, lets the launcher integrate with proprietary or other-licensed code while keeping modifications to Reliquaint's own files open.
• Catalog content — catalog entries and shipped configs live in the reliquaint-core repository under CC-BY-SA-4.0: reuse with attribution; derivative tap repositories must share-alike.