Hi, plex86 CVS version boots GRUB. This means that you can try to boot gnumach and eventually the Hurd in plex86. With increasing performance of plex86, this might be a good alternative to dual boot under some circumstances. Especially in favor of certain non-free products.
You can get plex86 from www.plex86.org. Check out the CVS version and follow the build instructions. To actually boot grub, you can use a grub floppy disk. A config file comes with plex86 (conf/grub). I had to use a real disk /dev/hdX to get grub to access the filesystem, a disk image wouldn't work, but maybe I just didn't know how to do it. I tried to boot gnumach, but it dies in fpu_init() when trying to access fpe_reg_segment. That's a gnumach kernel panic, but should be a bug in plex86, or a missing feature. I disabled this by replacing #define FPE 1 in i386/bogus/fpe.h with #undef FPE. Then gnumach came further along, until somewhere in serverboot I think. Then plex86 crashes really hard. A similar crash I get with oskit-mach, but a bit earlier I think. I think it is now a good time to work on plex86 to boot the Hurd, if you are interested in this type of hacking[1]. This is not really within the scope of Debian or the Hurd[1], but we would benefit from it. Interested people should coordinate their work within the plex86 project and keep us up to date when you make progress. For example, you could put up a disk image and a config file so people can try the Hurd without installing it. Thanks, Marcus [1] As the Hurd runs on a normal PC, plex86 should support it. But there might be some rare cases where a change in GNU Mach would make it easier for plex86 to run it. In this case, let us know on [email protected] and we will decide on it. -- `Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
