Re: [Qemu-devel] Which qemu ports actually work?

[Alexander Graf]

On 26.10.2010, at 12:52, Torbjorn Granlund wrote:

> Alexander Graf <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> (1) For ppc32, gentoo hans quickly, the last line is this:
>> 
>>   Memory: 247644k/262144k avalable (5652k kernel code, 14500l reserved, 212k 
>> data, 137k  bss, 260k ini
>> 
>>   This last line is long, it is truncated to the right.
> 
>  Hrm. Please send me the vmlinux.gz file in a private mail.
> 
> Perhaps it is easier to download the image I used:
> ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/ppc/current-iso/install-powerpc-minimal-20101017.iso
> 
> (This machine has a 10 Gbps Internet connection, but perhaps you have
> better connectivity to another Gentoo mirror.)

k, I'll give it a try soon.

> 
>> (2) For ppc64, the last lines are:
>> 
>>   Calling quiesce ...
>>   returning from prom_init
>> 
>>   (Debian and Gentoo hangs at the same positions.)
> 
>  This probably means that the bootloader chose to boot a ppc32 kernel
>  on ppc64. Please try booting vmlinux and initrd directly using -kernel
>  and -initrd.
> 
> Hmm.  For Gentoo, I explicitly tried the "G5" and "ppc32" boot
> alternatives.
> 
> For Debian, I used "install".  Now I tried the better choice
> "install64", which comes a bit longer.  It fails in a new way: it
> ignores keyboard input, This happens after the kernel has booted, and
> the installer has started.

Yes, ignoring keyboard input sounds right. The issue here is that we're 
basically emulating a PPC32 machine, but plug in a PPC64 CPU. This works 
mostly, but for ADB it breaks, as the guest kernel doesn't have support for our 
ADB controller. Unfortunately, keyboard and mouse are attached using ADB.

One way to get around this is to use -usb -usbdevice keyboard. Another way is 
to use the serial port instead of graphical console.

> I tried this, e.g.:
> 
> qemu-system-ppc64 -vnc :1 -hda new.img -cdrom 
> /jails/shell/u/GNU/Debian/iso/debian-506-powerpc-CD-1.iso -boot d -net 
> nic,macaddr=52:54:00:12:34:59,model=e1000 -net tap,ifname=tap3,script=no -m 
> 512
> 
> (I also tried without -vnc, and  with less memory.  Same, same.)

See above, the issue is well known. Andreas is currently working on a CHRP 
target which should get rid of those limitations. But those efforts only just 
begun.

Please also keep in mind that PPC emulation is _very_ slow. If you need 
performance for this, please just grab a PPC machine and use KVM on it. It will 
be a lot faster.


Alex