Quoting Volker Kuhlmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: <snip> > > I have heard a few wow!s about the qemu in SuSE 10, which I will > definitely try out as soon as I get the box media. Great for software > testing I've heard. > > As for the talk, I'm afraid I was a bit disappointed, because it was a > bit inefficient and I came away without answers to some of the key
fair enough. > questions pertinent to any such emulator: how (in principle) does qemu > work, It's essentially a JIT emulator for binaries. http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html "QEMU is a FAST! processor emulator using dynamic translation to achieve good emulation speed. QEMU has two operating modes: * Full system emulation. In this mode, QEMU emulates a full system (for example a PC), including a processor and various peripherals. It can be used to launch different Operating Systems without rebooting the PC or to debug system code. * User mode emulation (Linux host only). In this mode, QEMU can launch Linux processes compiled for one CPU on another CPU. It can be used to launch the Wine Windows API emulator (http://www.winehq.org) or to ease cross-compilation and cross-debugging. QEMU can run without an host kernel driver and yet gives acceptable performance. " > how is the underlying host hardware handled, Qemu's an app running inside the hostOS; it calls the host hardware via the hostOS system calls just like any other app. > how the guest > hardware, The guest hardware takes the system calls made to it, then hands them on down to the hostOS system calls, which is where they get their work down. > what's the compatibility with a range of common application > software, So far I've got several major-sized applications and application suites running in MS Win9x under qemu on Linux. I haven't had so much luck with MS WinNT 4.0, but that's because I haven't installed any of the Service Packs. The applications include OO.org 1.1.4, Abiword, Sapphire (Accountancy package), OpenWatcom 1.3, MinGW 3.4.2, Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4, Thunderbird, and some more minor ones I can't recall offhand. Mind you, for Win95 I needed to install MSVCRT.DLL before it would deign to notice Mozilla Firefox. ;) > peripheral support (USB, printer, typical doze-only > fax/scanner/etc, sound!!!), >From the documentation: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html "The QEMU System emulator simulates the following PC peripherals: * i440FX host PCI bridge and PIIX3 PCI to ISA bridge * Cirrus CLGD 5446 PCI VGA card or dummy VGA card with Bochs VESA extensions (hardware level, including all non standard modes). * PS/2 mouse and keyboard * 2 PCI IDE interfaces with hard disk and CD-ROM support * Floppy disk * NE2000 PCI network adapters * Serial ports * Soundblaster 16 card QEMU uses the PC BIOS from the Bochs project and the Plex86/Bochs LGPL VGA BIOS. " I don't know about USB at present. At the moment I don't have any USB stuff, and I haven't tried any sound-generating stuff either. According to the documentation: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html "`-enable-audio' The SB16 emulation is disabled by default as it may give problems with Windows. You can enable it manually with this option." I'll try it when I get Doom installed. ;) I was also thinking I could probably rustle up a USB driver by reading the Linux and BSD USB modules, and comparing them with the specs and the (pre-existing) qemu driver code. (After all, how hard could it be? Famous last words! ;) But don't count on it yet - I'm laziness personified. ;) > file sharing between host and guest? Documentation: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html "`-n script' Set TUN/TAP network init script [default=/etc/qemu-ifup]. This script is launched to configure the host network interface (usually tun0) corresponding to the virtual NE2000 card." etc "`-smb dir' When using the user mode network stack, activate a built-in SMB server so that Windows OSes can access to the host files in `dir' transparently. In the guest Windows OS, the line: 10.0.2.4 smbserver must be added in the file `C:\WINDOWS\LMHOSTS' (for windows 9x/Me) or `C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\LMHOSTS' (Windows NT/2000). Then `dir' can be accessed in `\\smbserver\qemu'. Note that a SAMBA server must be installed on the host OS in `/usr/sbin/smbd'. QEMU was tested succesfully with smbd version 2.2.7a from the Red Hat 9 and version 3.0.10-1.fc3 from Fedora Core 3." I haven't been running qemu for long enough to have got a handle on the network options. my bad. I was just glad enough to have it running satisfactorily enough to try some Win32 (ReactOS and apps) projects I've got on the back burner. And qemu has become the ReactOS emulator of choice, by all the comments on the ReactOS lists. > (Feel > free to criticise my presentations... ;) > > Volker > > -- > Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in > header > http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. > "Sharpened hands are happy hands. "Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands" - A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge "I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!" I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
