[Qemu-devel] Re: [TUHS & QEMU] Making progress with old DG/UX virtualization. Need advice.

[Natalia Portillo]

Hi,

El 02/08/2010, a las 08:48, DG UX escribió:

> Thanks Natalia,
> 
> I'll start by answering the insultive part of your answer, as my ego
> will not let me go on if I don't:
> 
> I am not "begging on all the internet", I am simply seeking solutions,
> help and advice, and making sure to update whoever is interested in
> the progress I am doing.
> Also, I wish to thank you for your insight and well detailed answer.
> Finally I got an explanation as to _why_ solution A will not be as
> good as solution B. That is what I call a winning argument, and I
> thank you for that.

That's why I sent you the message not because egos

> I already have people searching for Adaptec docs and programmers for
> the creation of the driver, err, emulated device.

Great, I wish you my best and offer my repository of operating systems to test 
the emulated device on as much systems as possible when it is mature enough.

> Take care,
> Adam

Natalia Portillo
Claunia.com

> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Natalia Portillo <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I've read all your posts in the QEMU mailing list and the TUHS one and I'm 
>> answering to both lists in a hope my mail enlights you and any other curious.
>> 
>> First of all, old UNIX systems (and I put my hand on the fire for DG/UX 
>> also), use a monolithic linked at setup/later time kernel.
>> That is, even if you get a driver (IDE, virtio, whatsoever), the 
>> configuration files, the kernel, the ramdisk, everything that lets your 
>> system boot, MUST HAVE BEEN BOOT from the AIC controller, the driver is 
>> hardcoded, no way to change it.
>> 
>> If you have extensive knowledge of what files a driver setup modifies on 
>> DG/UX specifically (knowledge from other UNIX, forget it, they are as 
>> different as Porsche and Ferrari motors), you can always get a new kernel 
>> with the drivers you need to make it boot and manually put them in your 
>> image.
>> 
>> In the case, you meet this requirements, and, you do it, you can then 
>> achieve to other problems. The DG/UX workstations are x86 machines, but 
>> nothing swears they are PC compatible machines, and they can have a 
>> different memory map for some critical device, or include critical devices 
>> never found in a PC (like an Intel Macintosh does for example). Just booting 
>> from a BIOS doesn't make the machines be the same (PowerPC Macintosh, IBM 
>> POWER workstations, Genesi Pegasos, are machines that boot OpenFirmware with 
>> heavily different configurations, devices and memory maps).
>> 
>> Also, you are assuming IDE is available in DG/UX just because the controller 
>> is present in the hardware. That hardware was also used for Windows NT. IDE 
>> support can be JUST FOR Windows, and the DG/UX manufacturer just decided to 
>> not include an IDE driver in the kernel (happened in AIX for PCs until last 
>> version of all, only SCSI was supported, being a hugely strange controller 
>> in PC worlds).
>> 
>> In the case you opt for making a driver (adding IDE, virtio, or other SCSI 
>> support) for the DG/UX need to say you need, low level knowledge of the 
>> hardware, low level knowledge of the operating system, a working machine 
>> (for sure, with the hardware available), a debug machine (almost sure also), 
>> C and maybe assembler knowledge. In a scale of 10, this puts the difficulty 
>> in 8 for most of programmers, and surely if you were one you stacked with 
>> the first option everyone gave you (see next sentence).
>> 
>> The easiest way, and the one that people answered you already in QEMU's 
>> mailing list (in a scale of 10 the difficulty is 6 or even 5), is creating 
>> an emulated device (that's the correct term, not "driver") for an emulator, 
>> like QEMU, Bochs, VirtualBox (forget this option for VMWare, VirtualPC or 
>> Parallels) that adds the AIC SCSI controller you exactly need.
>> 
>> Why is this easiest? You don't need any DG/UX working system, you don't need 
>> to know how DG/UX works, you don't need to compile a kernel, copy it to your 
>> image.
>> 
>> You just take the Adaptec's documentation, and start coding, making a SCSI 
>> emulated controller, and testing it with systems you can always reinstall, 
>> debug, and check, until they fully work (Windows, Linux, BSD, take your 
>> choice).
>> 
>> And then, you just polish it until your DG/UX boots, or finds the memory map 
>> as a mess it doesnt like.
>> 
>> Finally, please stop begging on all the internet, spend that time coding the 
>> driver or getting the money to pay a programmer that will do.
>> 
>> Sincerely yours,
>> Natalia Portillo
>> Claunia.com CEO
>> QEMU's Official OS Support List maintainer