[Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot under qemu-system-sparc

[Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot under qemu-system-sparc

[Ben Taylor]

The question came up a little while back about getting Solaris (Sparc) to boot in qemu
under qemu-system-sparc.

I did a little work yesterday to find out that the boot process in hw/sun4m.c is really
kind of hard wired for a linux boot.   If there is no kernel or initrd, it drops right through.
In reality, if those variables aren't set, and the boot device is cdrom, shouldn't there
be some code to load the boot block in slice 3 of the cd/dvd?  At worst case, it
seems that we could probably extract the boot block and force qemu to load that with
the hope of getting a solaris/sparc on qemu started, since slice 1 of the cd/dvd is
the kernel and root directory structure.  Slice 0 is the install media.

Ideas?  I'm neck deep in the pool and have no idea where to start.  

Ben

Re: [Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot under qemu-system-sparc

[Paul Brook]

On Thursday 25 May 2006 14:16, Ben Taylor wrote:
> The question came up a little while back about getting Solaris (Sparc) to
> boot in qemu under qemu-system-sparc.
>
> I did a little work yesterday to find out that the boot process in
> hw/sun4m.c is really kind of hard wired for a linux boot.   If there is no
> kernel or initrd, it drops right through. In reality, if those variables
> aren't set, and the boot device is cdrom, shouldn't there be some code to
> load the boot block in slice 3 of the cd/dvd?  At worst case, it seems that
> we could probably extract the boot block and force qemu to load that with
> the hope of getting a solaris/sparc on qemu started, since slice 1 of the
> cd/dvd is the kernel and root directory structure.  Slice 0 is the install
> media.
>
> Ideas?  I'm neck deep in the pool and have no idea where to start.

Real sun SPARC systems use an OpenFirmware (aka OpenBoot) based system.

http://www.openbios.org/ indicates there is a qemu/sparc port in progress.

Paul

Re: [Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot under qemu-system-sparc

[Ben Taylor]

---- Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com> wrote: 
> On Thursday 25 May 2006 14:16, Ben Taylor wrote:
> > The question came up a little while back about getting Solaris (Sparc) to
> > boot in qemu under qemu-system-sparc.
> >
> > I did a little work yesterday to find out that the boot process in
> > hw/sun4m.c is really kind of hard wired for a linux boot.   If there is no
> > kernel or initrd, it drops right through. In reality, if those variables
> > aren't set, and the boot device is cdrom, shouldn't there be some code to
> > load the boot block in slice 3 of the cd/dvd?  At worst case, it seems that
> > we could probably extract the boot block and force qemu to load that with
> > the hope of getting a solaris/sparc on qemu started, since slice 1 of the
> > cd/dvd is the kernel and root directory structure.  Slice 0 is the install
> > media.
> >
> > Ideas?  I'm neck deep in the pool and have no idea where to start.
> 
> Real sun SPARC systems use an OpenFirmware (aka OpenBoot) based system.

Right.

> http://www.openbios.org/ indicates there is a qemu/sparc port in progress.

well, interestingly enough, trying to boot a Solaris 10U1 sparc cd with 
qemu-system-sparc (32-bit) comes up and says this hw is not supported.
So the boot block appears to be getting read.  

I tried configuring with --target-list=sparc64-softmmu, but got an error when I
tried to run it, saying:

 /tmp/qemu5/share/qemu/proll-sparc64.elf: No such file or directory
qemu: could not load prom '/tmp/qemu5/share/qemu/proll-sparc64.bin'

attempting to copy the proll.elf to proll-sparc64.elf ended up in a core dump
with this message to start:

 fatal: Trap 0x0010 while trap level is MAXTL, Error state

I wouldn't have thought that the proll would have needed to be 64-bit.
is this just a feature of the sparc64 code not getting too much exercise?

I'll try somore more tests with earlier versions of Solaris and the sparc32
module.

Ben

Re: [Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot underqemu-system-sparc

[Blue Swirl]

> > http://www.openbios.org/ indicates there is a qemu/sparc port in 
>progress.

Yes, and it is getting very close to being usable on Sparc32. OpenBIOS 
should be a better choice for Sparc64 because of the OpenFirmware and Forth 
support.

>I wouldn't have thought that the proll would have needed to be 64-bit.
>is this just a feature of the sparc64 code not getting too much exercise?

The hardware is totally different, especially from kernel or BIOS point of 
view. The first kernel-level instruction from Sparc32 BIOS will trap on 
Sparc64. Because there has not been any boot prom before, Sparc64 side of 
Qemu is very much untested.

>I'll try somore more tests with earlier versions of Solaris and the sparc32
>module.

You may have to go back to Solaris 8 (9?) to find Sparc32 support.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to boot underqemu-system-sparc

[Natalia Portillo]

That message came with or without OpenBIOS?

I should test NeXTStep/Sparc (sun4m required).

Is OpenBIOS made to work also on PowerPC?
OHW currently has so bugs that doesnt boot anything.

Regards

El 25/05/2006, a las 16:17, Blue Swirl escribió:

>> > http://www.openbios.org/ indicates there is a qemu/sparc port in  
>> progress.
>
> Yes, and it is getting very close to being usable on Sparc32.  
> OpenBIOS should be a better choice for Sparc64 because of the  
> OpenFirmware and Forth support.
>
>> I wouldn't have thought that the proll would have needed to be 64- 
>> bit.
>> is this just a feature of the sparc64 code not getting too much  
>> exercise?
>
> The hardware is totally different, especially from kernel or BIOS  
> point of view. The first kernel-level instruction from Sparc32 BIOS  
> will trap on Sparc64. Because there has not been any boot prom  
> before, Sparc64 side of Qemu is very much untested.
>
>> I'll try somore more tests with earlier versions of Solaris and  
>> the sparc32
>> module.
>
> You may have to go back to Solaris 8 (9?) to find Sparc32 support.
>
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Re: [Qemu-devel] work needed to get solaris to bootunderqemu-system-sparc

[Blue Swirl]

>I should test NeXTStep/Sparc (sun4m required).
>
>Is OpenBIOS made to work also on PowerPC?
>OHW currently has so bugs that doesnt boot anything.

There is some support in OpenBIOS for PPC machines named briq, mol and 
pearpc, but I don't know if they are related to Qemu machine types.

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