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[Qemu-devel] Re: [TUHS & QEMU] Making progress with old DG/UX virtualiza
From: |
Natalia Portillo |
Subject: |
[Qemu-devel] Re: [TUHS & QEMU] Making progress with old DG/UX virtualization. Need advice. |
Date: |
Mon, 2 Aug 2010 17:00:58 +0100 |
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