[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Brett Bonfield]

> From: Ronald <look@reply.to >
> Subject: [Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP
> To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org 
> Message-ID: <pan.2004.11.15.16.34.43.393327@reply.to >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
> 
> Le Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:40:22 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :
> 
> > On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:46:59 +0100, Fabrice Bellard <fabrice@bellard.org >
> > wrote:
> >> Brett Bonfield wrote:
> >>  > [...]
> >> > Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
> >> > as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
> >> > here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm 
> >> >
> >> > The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
> >> > images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
> >> > goes as follows:
> >>
> >> Then why not fixing mkqemuimage.exe to do that too ?
> >>
> >> Fabrice.
> >
> > I hope I didn't offend anyone and I definitely didn't mean to imply that
> > dd for Win32 was somehow better than mkqemuimage.exe. Honestly, I don't
> > know anything about mkqemuimage--someone on the Mepis forum suggested
> > using dd so I investigated how to do that on Windows. Is there a good
> > reason to use mkqemuimage instead of dd for Win32? I have no idea how to
> > adjust mkqemuimage so that it meets my needs, but if someone else wants to
> > take on that project I suspect I'm one of many people who would be
> > grateful.
> >
> > Brett
> 
> Is there a particular reason to not use qemu-img.exe?
> mkqemuimage is perhaps much simpler to use but have this 2G limit and only
> output raw images.
> 
> Anyway this is a nice tool that have been created for making empty images
> to use with qemu on windows instead of borrowing one from another project.

I think the reason I have so many questions is there's either a lack
of documenation or I haven't been able to find the documentation.

I think my situation is (or will be) the situation in which many
people find themselves:
I have a computer that runs Windows (in my case, XP Pro) and I want to
be able to run Linux on it *while* I'm running Windows. I don't want
to have to reboot to swith from OS to OS, I don't want to partition my
hard drive, I want to be able to save my work and install Linux
software, but I don't want to damage my current Windows XP install.

What do I do?

There are dozens (hundreds?) of Linux distros. I chose SimplyMEPIS
because it's the simplest to install and use, at least in my
experience.

Between Qemu and Cooperative Linux, I like Qemu because it's easier to
install and use.

But now that I''ve made this decision, I still don't know the best way
to proceed. It seems I could use dd for Win32, but those who know Qemu
best seem to think this is a bad idea. I could use mkqemuimage.exe or
qemu-img.exe or Make-a-file.exe, some of them through QemuMenu.bat,
but I don't know which one makes the most sense for my needs and I
can't find documentation on any of them. Plus, I still don't know how
to make sure that when I install Linux I can be sure it's not damaging
my host OS (I realize this is addressed in the FreeOSZoo FAQ, but the
answer doesn't seem to be about disk images that allow program like
apt-get to install software on a virtual image).

If I can get all this straightened out in my head I'd be happy to help
with documentation... I just need to be able to test first.

Brett

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Ronald]

Le Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:04:10 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :

> I think my situation is (or will be) the situation in which many people
> find themselves:
> I have a computer that runs Windows (in my case, XP Pro) and I want to be
> able to run Linux on it *while* I'm running Windows. I don't want to have
> to reboot to swith from OS to OS, I don't want to partition my hard drive,
> I want to be able to save my work and install Linux software, but I don't
> want to damage my current Windows XP install.
> 
> What do I do?
> 

Think about qemu like a nested computer, you can't access your host's
devices directly from guest, that's true for windows hosts, proof is you
can't access your real cdrom or hard drive within guest,right?. You have
to use files as guest devices.Everything you write on qemu hard disk is
written inside an only file on your host, the one you pass as -hd?. 
This way you can become familiar with linux or another OS, when you will
be confident enough (when you will run qemu as soon as windows started and
quit windows as soon as qemu shutdown), you'll find you don't need windows
anymore :) 

> There are dozens (hundreds?) of Linux distros. I chose SimplyMEPIS because
> it's the simplest to install and use, at least in my experience.
> 
> Between Qemu and Cooperative Linux, I like Qemu because it's easier to
> install and use.
> 

IMHO, Qemu is a better way to learn linux powered OSes, the reason is
CoLinux don't use standard device like hd, but have his own devices and
drivers (AFAIK).

> But now that I''ve made this decision, I still don't know the best way to
> proceed. It seems I could use dd for Win32, but those who know Qemu best
> seem to think this is a bad idea. I could use mkqemuimage.exe or
> qemu-img.exe or Make-a-file.exe, some of them through QemuMenu.bat, but I
> don't know which one makes the most sense for my needs and I can't find
> documentation on any of them. Plus, I still don't know how to make sure
> that when I install Linux I can be sure it's not damaging my host OS (I
> realize this is addressed in the FreeOSZoo FAQ, but the answer doesn't
> seem to be about disk images that allow program like apt-get to install
> software on a virtual image).
>

The best way to proceed is the one you understand most easily, there are
many way to do, if you feel dd for windows is perfect for your needs, just
use it, just make sure the tool you use produce image that qemu can read.
 
> If I can get all this straightened out in my head I'd be happy to help
> with documentation... I just need to be able to test first.
> 
> Brett

Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Fabrice Bellard]

 > [...]
> But now that I''ve made this decision, I still don't know the best way
> to proceed. It seems I could use dd for Win32, but those who know Qemu
> best seem to think this is a bad idea. I could use mkqemuimage.exe or
> qemu-img.exe or Make-a-file.exe, some of them through QemuMenu.bat,
> but I don't know which one makes the most sense for my needs and I
> can't find documentation on any of them. Plus, I still don't know how
> to make sure that when I install Linux I can be sure it's not damaging
> my host OS (I realize this is addressed in the FreeOSZoo FAQ, but the
> answer doesn't seem to be about disk images that allow program like
> apt-get to install software on a virtual image).
> 
> If I can get all this straightened out in my head I'd be happy to help
> with documentation... I just need to be able to test first.

Sorry. I am updating the documentation.

Fabrice.

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Brett Bonfield]

> Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:13:55 -0500
> From: Garth Dahlstrom <ironstorm@gmail.com >
> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP
> To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org 
> Message-ID: <76bfb9d204111312131fc5c31e@mail.gmail.com >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> > Brett Bonfield wrote:
> > With QemuInstall-20041111 I get:
> >
> > qemu:  could not load PC bios './bios.bin'
> 
> If the windows QEMU doesn't run that is undoubtly my bad, as I'm wrote
> the menu for it...
> 
> It seems after some investigation that there were a number of bugs...
> 
> I just made a new version (v20041113) of QEMUMenu available at my site
> http://stacktrace.org/ 

How will we know when the new version has been incorporated into
QemuInstall-2004xxxx.exe?

> Fixed:
>     * -L parameter had a trailing slash, which caused QEMU to fail silently
>     * -L parameter was not quoted meaning default location in \Program
> files\  would not be passed as a single parameter, so QEMU would fail
>     * Preferences were not being retrieved correctly because working
> directory was being changed .bat file location after preferences were
> retrieved but before they were saved
> 
> Enhancements:
>     * Added search for *.dat as additional image files so QEMUMenu
> picks up Zitu's make-a-file program images
> 
> Drop it into C:\Program Files\Qemu (or where ever you installed to)
> 
> Let me know if that fixes everything up...

I ask the above just because I figure someone else may have beaten me to it :^)

Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm

The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
goes as follows:

- - -

"The requirement is to create a big empty file which can be presented as 
a harddisk.  Under linux I would do this like this:
dd if=/dev/zero of=myfile.img bs=1024k count=3000
This will give you 3000Meg.

The file will be 'initialised' with \000s.  It is possible to create a 
sparse file which is 'hollow' and will be allocated when you write to 
it.  That can cause problems with some programs though so it is best to 
avoid that unless you know it works.

Windows does not share the philosophy which makes that kind of command 
possible.

Under windows, sparse files are not supported so we can use the dd tool 
in a different way.  If you write anything to a large offset (say 3Gig) 
then all the space before that will be allocated.

Pick a file which you can read and is larger than 1024 bytes and try 
this command:
dd if=filethatalreadyexists of=newfile.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1
here seek is the offset into the newfile to start the writing.  The 
number I am using = 1024 * 3000 - 1 which will give you 3000Meg again."

- - -

Thanks,

Brett

Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Fabrice Bellard]

Brett Bonfield wrote:
 > [...]
> Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
> as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
> here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm
> 
> The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
> images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
> goes as follows:

Then why not fixing mkqemuimage.exe to do that too ?

Fabrice.

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Brett Bonfield]

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:46:59 +0100, Fabrice Bellard <fabrice@bellard.org> wrote:
> Brett Bonfield wrote:
>  > [...]
> > Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
> > as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
> > here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm 
> >
> > The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
> > images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
> > goes as follows:
> 
> Then why not fixing mkqemuimage.exe to do that too ?
> 
> Fabrice.

I hope I didn't offend anyone and I definitely didn't mean to imply
that dd for Win32 was somehow better than mkqemuimage.exe. Honestly, I
don't know anything about mkqemuimage--someone on the Mepis forum
suggested using dd so I investigated how to do that on Windows. Is
there a good reason to use mkqemuimage instead of dd for Win32? I have
no idea how to adjust mkqemuimage so that it meets my needs, but if
someone else wants to take on that project I suspect I'm one of many
people who would be grateful.

Brett

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Ronald]

Le Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:40:22 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :

> On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:46:59 +0100, Fabrice Bellard <fabrice@bellard.org>
> wrote:
>> Brett Bonfield wrote:
>>  > [...]
>> > Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
>> > as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
>> > here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm
>> >
>> > The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
>> > images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
>> > goes as follows:
>> 
>> Then why not fixing mkqemuimage.exe to do that too ?
>> 
>> Fabrice.
> 
> I hope I didn't offend anyone and I definitely didn't mean to imply that
> dd for Win32 was somehow better than mkqemuimage.exe. Honestly, I don't
> know anything about mkqemuimage--someone on the Mepis forum suggested
> using dd so I investigated how to do that on Windows. Is there a good
> reason to use mkqemuimage instead of dd for Win32? I have no idea how to
> adjust mkqemuimage so that it meets my needs, but if someone else wants to
> take on that project I suspect I'm one of many people who would be
> grateful.
> 
> Brett

Is there a particular reason to not use qemu-img.exe?
mkqemuimage is perhaps much simpler to use but have this 2G limit and only
output raw images.

Anyway this is a nice tool that have been created for making empty images
to use with qemu on windows instead of borrowing one from another project.  

Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Fabrice Bellard]

Ronald wrote:
> Le Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:40:22 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :
> 
> 
>>On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:46:59 +0100, Fabrice Bellard <fabrice@bellard.org>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Brett Bonfield wrote:
>>> > [...]
>>>
>>>>Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32"
>>>>as well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available
>>>>here: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm
>>>>
>>>>The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
>>>>images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
>>>>goes as follows:
>>>
>>>Then why not fixing mkqemuimage.exe to do that too ?
>>>
>>>Fabrice.
>>
>>I hope I didn't offend anyone and I definitely didn't mean to imply that
>>dd for Win32 was somehow better than mkqemuimage.exe. Honestly, I don't
>>know anything about mkqemuimage--someone on the Mepis forum suggested
>>using dd so I investigated how to do that on Windows. Is there a good
>>reason to use mkqemuimage instead of dd for Win32? I have no idea how to
>>adjust mkqemuimage so that it meets my needs, but if someone else wants to
>>take on that project I suspect I'm one of many people who would be
>>grateful.
>>
>>Brett
> 
> 
> Is there a particular reason to not use qemu-img.exe?
> mkqemuimage is perhaps much simpler to use but have this 2G limit and only
> output raw images.
> 
> Anyway this is a nice tool that have been created for making empty images
> to use with qemu on windows instead of borrowing one from another project.  

OOops, sorry, I wanted to say that qemu-img.exe should be used instead 
of other tools as it handles all images formats that QEMU supports and 
some manipulations like AES encryption and compression.

Fabrice.

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Ronald]

Le Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:41:42 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :

>> > Brett Bonfield wrote:
>> > With QemuInstall-20041111 I get:
>> >
>> > qemu:  could not load PC bios './bios.bin'
>> 
>> If the windows QEMU doesn't run that is undoubtly my bad, as I'm wrote
>> the menu for it...
>> 
>> It seems after some investigation that there were a number of bugs...
>> 
>> I just made a new version (v20041113) of QEMUMenu available at my site
>> http://stacktrace.org/
> 
> How will we know when the new version has been incorporated into
> QemuInstall-2004xxxx.exe?
> 

It's updated in today's build and in 0.6.1
(ftp://ftp.freeoszoo.org/qemu/win32/release/QemuInstall-0.6.1.exe)

I hope I have not breack anything because I have a new toolchain and I
have only do a duke3d test run :)

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Anand Kumria]

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:41:42 -0500, Brett Bonfield wrote:

> Also, would you consider making QEMUMenu.bat work with "dd for Win32" as
> well as it works with Zitu's program. dd for Win32 is available here:
> http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm
> 
> The advantage it has over mkqemuimage.exe is that it can make any size
> images, at least so far as I can tell. The logic John Newbigin emailed
> goes as follows:
> 
> - - -
> 
> "The requirement is to create a big empty file which can be presented as a
> harddisk.  Under linux I would do this like this: dd if=/dev/zero
> of=myfile.img bs=1024k count=3000 This will give you 3000Meg.
> 
> The file will be 'initialised' with \000s.  It is possible to create a
> sparse file which is 'hollow' and will be allocated when you write to it. 
> That can cause problems with some programs though so it is best to avoid
> that unless you know it works.
> 
> Windows does not share the philosophy which makes that kind of command
> possible.
> 
> Under windows, sparse files are not supported so we can use the dd tool in
> a different way.  If you write anything to a large offset (say 3Gig) then
> all the space before that will be allocated.

That isn't true. Under Windows, use the mksparse command.

Not all filesystems have to support sparse files but NTFS (and perhaps
ext2/ext3 one day under Windows?) does.

<URL: http://www.insidewindows.info/mksparse.zip>

Cheers,
Anand

-- 
linux.conf.au 2005   -  http://lca2005.linux.org.au/  -  Birthplace of Tux
April 18th to 23rd   -  http://lca2005.linux.org.au/  -       LINUX
Canberra, Australia  -  http://lca2005.linux.org.au/  -    Get bitten!

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Brett Bonfield]

> From: Ronald <look@reply.to >
> 
> Le Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:18:59 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :
> 
> >> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:01:31 -0300 From: Andr? Braga
> >> <meianoite@gmail.com >
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> > QemuInstall-0.6.0 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu): dd
> >> > if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1 <
> >> > this created the image >
> >> > qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net <
> >> > this didn't seem to do anything >
> >>
> >> Try:
> >> qemu -L . -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net
> >
> > I created the hd.img with dd for Win32, then typed the command directly
> > above.
> >
> > With QemuInstall-20041111 I get:
> >
> > qemu:  could not load PC bios './bios.bin'
> >
> 
> That's because bioses are now in a separate directory (called bios), the
> dot which follow -L means current directory, you must pass -L .\bios with
> recent installer (or -L "C:\Program Files\Qemu\bios").

It worked! Thank you!

The command I ended up sending was:

qemu -L .\bios -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d
-user-net -m 128 -enable-audio -localtime

For MEPIS, at least on my Win XP Pro system, neither the -enable-audio
nor -localtime seem to be working. The time is still off and when the
system loads I get the following message:

- - -

X informational - artsmessage

Sound server information message:

Error while initializing the sound driver:

device /dev/dsp can't ve opened (No
such device)

The sound server will continue, using
the null output device.

- - - 

Finally, does anyone know how safe it is to use MEPIS Installation
Center to install MEPIS onto my system. I do not want to end up
formatting my whole hard drive -- I want to be sure that Mepis only
installs itself into the 3GB I've allocated for it.

In the Installation Center I select Installation Utilities > Install
MEPIS on Hard Drive. It believe I should select the options to

Use disk: hda
Auto-install using entire disk

Is there any way to know that for MEPIS the entire disk is the 3GB hda
and not my whole hard drive, and that the rest of my hard drive won't
be harmed?

Re: [Qemu-devel] Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Brett Bonfield]

> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:01:31 -0300
> From: Andr? Braga <meianoite@gmail.com >

<snip>

> > QemuInstall-0.6.0 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu):
> > dd if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1
> > < this created the image >
> > qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net
> > < this didn't seem to do anything >
> 
> Try:
> qemu -L . -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net

I created the hd.img with dd for Win32, then typed the command directly above.

With QemuInstall-20041111 I get:

qemu:  could not load PC bios './bios.bin'

With QemuInstall-0.6.0:

I just get another command prompt--it seems as though nothing at all
is happening.

> > Boot from Hard Disk 0 failed
> > FATA: Not a bootable disk
> > <end QemuMenu.bat error>
> > Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Again, thank you for reading
> > through such a long message.
> 
> It seems that the batch file is trying to boot the hard drive image
> instead of the ISO image. Obviously, since the HD image hasn't been
> initialized with a proper OS, it will fail.
> 
> Appearently the batch file worked because it passes the "-L ." flag to
> QEMU, but sticked to bootin the HD by default.
> 
> I hope that's it, and now everything should work OK. Let me know :)
> 
> Cheers,
> A.

Thanks for the response. I hope the error message I got make sense to you.

Also, zitu, thank you for your suggestion, but the documentation
supplied with Make-a-file.exe doesn't make it clear to me how I would
use the program in this situation.

I really appreciate everyone's patience with me,

Brett

[Qemu-devel] Re: Using Qemu to install Linux in a Windows XP

[Ronald]

Le Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:18:59 -0500, Brett Bonfield a écrit :

>> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:01:31 -0300 From: Andr? Braga
>> <meianoite@gmail.com >
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> > QemuInstall-0.6.0 (installed to C:\Program Files\Qemu): dd
>> > if=SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso of=MEPIS.img bs=1k seek=3071999 count=1 <
>> > this created the image >
>> > qemu -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net <
>> > this didn't seem to do anything >
>> 
>> Try:
>> qemu -L . -hda hd.img -cdrom SimplyMEPIS-2004.04.iso -boot d -user-net
> 
> I created the hd.img with dd for Win32, then typed the command directly
> above.
> 
> With QemuInstall-20041111 I get:
> 
> qemu:  could not load PC bios './bios.bin'
> 

That's because bioses are now in a separate directory (called bios), the
dot which follow -L means current directory, you must pass -L .\bios with
recent installer (or -L "C:\Program Files\Qemu\bios").

> With QemuInstall-0.6.0:
> 
> I just get another command prompt--it seems as though nothing at all is
> happening.
> 

It could be the -user-net option that is not valid with 0.6.0, I think at
this time slirp for windows was provided only as a patch which is not
applied to this release