I use C for programming (no object-oriented programming or fancy data structures). I develop the game on Linux (I simply prefer using Linux). I do not use any special libraries. For the Linux version, I compile the program with GCC. For the DOS version, I use Openwatcom (open-watcom.owcc-dos4g).
If the Linux version works correctly, I compile it for DOS as well. Debugging and finding memory errors in a DOS executable are much more difficult.