Re: VMware - installing openserver 5.0.x

From: Bela Lubkin (belal_at_sco.com)
Date: 04/08/04 

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 07:53:09 GMT
To: scomsc@xenitec.ca

David wrote:

> Here is a link to my site (http://David.ComputerLandInc.com), which
> contains extremely detailed instruction for installing OpenServer
> under VMware.

I recently downloaded the 30-day eval of VMWare Workstation so I could
play with this stuff. My experiences with it were similar to yours,
with one big simplifying exception.

Your web page barely mentions any version numbers. You mention VMWare
Workstation "4" and no OpenServer release information at all.

The VMWare Workstation eval that was available when I downloaded was
"4.5.1 build-7568". I installed it on a Windows XP SP1 system. I then
did various test installs of OpenServer Release 5.0.7.

It's been a couple of weeks since I did this, so the details aren't as
fresh as I'd like, but here's a general sense of what I did:

  - new virtual machine, "other", 128MB RAM, IDE virtual hard disk
  - boot OSR507 CD
  - install normally (no bootstrings, no BTLDs)
  - once installed, `scoadmin video`, choose "VESA" driver and a
    suitable resolution

The key bit here is that I had no trouble between the OSR507 "wd" IDE
driver and VMWare's emulation of IDE controllers/drives. This may be an
enhancement made between VMWare 4.0 and 4.5.1.

I did fiddle with SCSI a little bit. VMWare Workstation 4.5.1 offers
two SCSI host adapter emulations: BusLogic BT958 and LSI Logic 53c1020.
A driver for BT958 is present in the OSR507 boot CD kernel, but it's a
defective build of the driver and does not support PCI HBAs. That's why
you need a BTLD. The BTLD appears to work, but I didn't attempt
installation beyond the point of recognizing the hard disk.

A driver for LSI 53c1020 is available from www.lsilogic.com ("lsil").
Loading this as a BTLD, under OSR507, VMWare 4.5.1, XP SP1, fails. I
don't have notes on it but basically VMWare announced an attempt to run
an illegal instruction.

No big deal, if you want to emulate SCSI just use the BusLogic choice.
It shouldn't make much difference that you're stepping down from an
Ultra320 to an UltraWide controller, since there are no physical disks
and physical transmission paths being narrowed.

I also had no trouble with high video resolutions. The windows box is
running its native video at 1152x864 with 32-bit color, so I told OSR5
to use 1152x864 16-bit color (the VESA driver didn't offer 32-bit
color). The resulting display has to be scrolled when seen through a
VMWare window, but when I display it fullscreen, it exactly fills the
screen, looks just like native OSR5.

Tip: go to Preferences -> Hot Keys, set the combination to
Ctrl-Shift-Alt. This allows OSR5's multiscreen switch sequences
(Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc.) to work.

A few glitches. One: the first time I ran `mkdev graphics` and
selected VESA, it all worked nicely. Later runs get a coredump in the
utility that reads VESA mode information, so I have had to resort to
hand-editing the file that assigns modes to console multiscreens
(/usr/lib/grafinfo/grafdev). The significant line in my copy reads:

  /dev/tty02:vesa.svga.vbe.1152x864-16

Probably for the same reason, when I reboot the virtual machine it
reverts to IBM VGA 640x480 16-color. I have to copy my hand-modified
grafdev file over the one the system reverted.

Two: the mouse resolution is weird (not at all smooth).

Three: the mouse _sometimes_ goes insane and I have to reboot the
virtual machine to fix it.

Four: telling VMWare to go fullscreen works fine in graphics mode, but
if I do it on a text multiscreen, the monitor tries to lose sync. It
puts up a self-generated display saying that the signal from the
computer is outside its sync range: "OUT OF FREQUENCY RANGE / Attention
/ Out of range / H:29.1KHz 69.9Hz".

Worst of all: I sent a detailed message to VMWare support about these
and other issues, and -- as I have experienced over all the years since
VMWare first came on the market -- I was soundly ignored.

>Bela<

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Migrating Windows to Linux Questions.
    ... I cannot spare several days in the office for installing ... configured system under VMWare cannot boot and run under native hardware? ... What linux distribution to use? ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: Migrating Windows to Linux Questions.
    ... I cannot spare several days in the office for installing ... > configured system under VMWare cannot boot and run under native hardware? ... Every distribution has holes. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • RE: Are there any known issues for installing FreeBSD on Vmware onwindows XP ?
    ... Are there any known issues for installing FreeBSD on Vmware ... little way, and you'll see an example kernel config file, too. ...
    (freebsd-hackers)
  • Re: Problem with VMware
    ... > I've got weird problem while installing Windows 2000/XP system on ... I've powered virtual machine on ... vmware, change the emulated/direct CDRom settings. ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Virtualized SCO OpenServer 5.0.6, and time reset on shutdown
    ... running an SCO OpenServer 5.0.6 environment in it. ... So, if you shutdown the VM and then the host, and after, say, 12 hours, you power on again the host, and the host shows correct time, and you then start the VM with OS-5.0.6, if you go right into the VM's BIOS before OpenServer boots, what time is there in the VM BIOS? ... the world, but it seems to be associated with "use the shutdown command in the VM", and then "shut down the VMware server", then later "restart the VMware server", and "restart the VM". ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)