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

[DG UX]

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.

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

Take care,
Adam


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