Re: SCO OS 5.0.7 on Qemu

Bela Lubkin wrote:
> Roberto Zini wrote:
>
>
>>This time of the year allows me to experiment with things that otherwyse
>>I woulnd't have the time play with; during the last few days I gave Qemu
>> 0.8.0 + kqemu (running on SuSE Linux 10) a try. I was able to install
>>and successfully use Windows XP and I wanted to give SCO OS 5.0.7 a run.
>>
>>I started with a 300MB memory allocation and by creating a virtual disk
>>of 2GB; when I booted from the CD, I was able to get to the boot: prompt
>>but, after depicting the usual dots, I ended up having a blank screen
>>instead of the "laundry list" of devices.
>>
>>Qemu is able to emulate an old Cirrus Logic board and, since
>>I was aware of the OSS653A patch (the initial VGA recognition
>>supplement) so I tried to add it as a BTLD driver (which worked fine)
>>but again I ended up with a blank screen.
>>
>>So I gave OSS661A a try and I was able to get to the laundry list but I
>>had a "WARNING: hd: no root disk controller was found".
>>
>>This is strange since Qemu is able to emulate a simple IDE/EIDE
>>controller; the CD-ROM interface the installed detect is the real
>>/dev/cdrom device under Linux and the HD is an ATA-2 2GB HD configured
>>as ata0/master.
>
>
> This is much the same problem that OSR5 has previously had with VMware
> and then with MS Virtual PC. The OSR5 "wd" IDE driver has code in it to
> work around the quirks of _ancient_ "wd" family disk controllers. I'm
> talking about things like the Western Digital WD1003 (16-bit ISA
> controller used in PC/AT class machines), and even older relatives.
> These workarounds have been conditioned over the years to work correctly
> with _real_ MFM/RLL/ESDI/IDE/ATA/etc controllers, but they tend to
> trigger oddities in emulators.
>
> The driver is partly at fault (for pushing the "hardware" in weird,
> unexpected directions); and the emulator is partly at fault (for not
> emulating every quirk of the real hardware it's supposed to represent).

Once more, Bela, thank you for taking the time to read this and for the
above explanation.

>
>
>>I tried with "defbootstr Sdsk=wd(0,0,0) link=invd prompt" but that gave
>>me a panic during the hd_config stage.
>
>
> Although "wd" has a SCSI interface, that is only used for ATAPI devices
> (mostly CD/DVD drives, also tapes and a few other oddball items). IDE
> hard disks are _not_ in any way seen as SCSI under OSR5. Here you told
> the kernel to look for a SCSI disk on a "wd" HBA. This is a valid
> formulation to access an ATAPI device that represents itself as a hard
> disk, e.g. an ATAPI Zip. It goes nowhere with a true IDE hard disk.
>

OK.

>
>>So I downloaded the WD supplement from SCO's FTP site and tried to use
>>it using the
>>
>> link="invd wd"
>>
>>bootstring. The loader correctly prompted me to replace the existing
>>"wd" driver but, again, I ended up having a "no root disk controller was
>>found".
>>
>>The laundry list reported
>>
>> adaptec 0x0170-0x0177 15 - type=IDE ctlr=secondary drv=wd
>>
>>which is the secondary IDE controller but failed to report the primary
>>(which is/should be at 0x1F0 - IRQ 14). I tried again by telling the
>>loader to search for a "wd" adapter here:
>>
>> adapter=wd(0x1F0,14,0)
>>
>>but unsuccessfully.
>
>
> "wd", in its role as a pseudo-SCSI HBA, announces "%adapter" lines for
> controllers on which it finds ATAPI devices. Your primary controller
> has only a hard disk (which it isn't going to see as SCSI), so it
> doesn't announce the HBA. If the hard disk itself is found, you get a
> "%disk" line that announces the same I/O addresses etc.
>
> No "adapter=", "Sdsk=" or any other OSR5 SCSI subsystem-related
> bootstrings are going to help here. What you need is to get the IDE
> controller and hard disk detection over the hump.
>
>
>>I'm pretty sure that (again - and he will be more than welcome :-) Bela
>>will jump ip, scare me to death and provide a simple solution...
>
>
> Hmmm, well, let's scare you with this:

You already did (but I was prepared :-)

> I'm starting a new job Monday, at
> VMware. I suspect that I should not do a whole lot of very visible
> support work on open source products that compete directly with my
> employer. But what the heck, at the moment this falls under "learning
> about emulation" -- it will make me more effective at my job.

Well, I wish you luck for your new life; I'm pretty sure folks at VmWare
will gain from your expertise and knowledge but __please__ don't forget
us poor guys still stuck to OSes from SCO :-)

>
> Next step I recommend:
>
> Boot
> : defbootstr link=invd wd.debug=ugi
>

Well, I used the following:

defbootstr link="invd wd" wd.debug=ugi

>From inside the emulator I'm able to "switch" the floppy disk emulated
image since I had to use 2 BTLDs (one for the invd driver and one for
the newer wd one).

> This makes the "wd" driver print as much debug output as it can; which
> isn't very much, but should give us a vague sense of how far it's
> getting.
>
> The sequence of operations that happen is, very crudely, something like
> this:
>
> wd_ctlrpres():
> see if a ST506/IDE controller is present
> /* if we got this far, the driver does think a controller exists,
> but it also wants to know if it's one of the ancient weird ones
> that it knows won't work, so: */
> subject it to several weird tests
> return false if those weird tests fail
>
> wd_drivepres():
> see if a ST506/IDE hard disk is present
> /* same deal */
> subject it to several weird tests
> return false if those weird tests fail
>
> You're going to get some debug output that may or may not clarify this.
> If you're lucky, debug output will suggest an easy workaround. If not,

Well, I did that; problem is that debug messages fill up the screen so
I'm not sure if the easy workaround you suggested actually appeared or not.

Anyway, what I can see on the screen is (hand written so prone to errors):

wd: if incorrect, add wd.udma=33 (or 66 or 100) to your bootstring.
wd 0/0: IDENTIFY DEVICE: Status 58, Error 00
wd 0/0: non-ATAPI device present
wd: Drive max supported mode = 4, BIOS selected mode = 5
wd: Drive using BIOS selected UDMA mode 5
wd 0/0: Common UDMA Mode 4, Max MBoard mode 6, Max dev supt 4
wd: Possible UDMA timing mismatch, bootstring may be required
wd: add wd.udma=auto for driver attempted auto sense or
wd: wd.udma=off to use Programmed I/O (PIO) instead of UDMA
wd 0/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
wd 1/0: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 41, Error 04
wd 1/0: ATAPI_IDENTIFY: Status 48, Error 00, ATAPI = yes
wd 1/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
%adapter 0x0170-0x177 15 - type=IDE ctlr=secondary dvr=wd
....
....
WARNING: hd: no root disk controller was found
hd: a Boot-Time Loadable Driver may be required
%cd-rom - - type=IDE unit=0 ctlr=sec cfg=mst dvr=Srom->wd

I've tried by rebooting with "wd.debug=ui wd.udma=auto" but
unsuccessfully; however, the following messages appeared (**):

wd: if incorrect, add wd.udma=33 (or 66 or 100) to your bootstring.
wd 0/0: IDENTIFY DEVICE: Status 58, Error 00
wd 0/0: non-ATAPI device present
wd: Drive max supported mode = 4, BIOS selected mode = 5
** wd: Reprogram ATA drive to UDMA mode 4 **
wd 0/0: Common UDMA Mode 4, Max MBoard mode 6, Max dev supt 4
wd: Possible UDMA timing mismatch, bootstring may be required
wd: add wd.udma=auto for driver attempted auto sense or
wd: wd.udma=off to use Programmed I/O (PIO) instead of UDMA
wd 0/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
wd 1/0: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 41, Error 04
wd 1/0: ATAPI_IDENTIFY: Status 48, Error 00, ATAPI = yes
wd 1/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
%adapter 0x0170-0x177 15 - type=IDE ctlr=secondary dvr=wd
....
....
WARNING: hd: no root disk controller was found
hd: a Boot-Time Loadable Driver may be required


Next, I used wd.udma=off and some more lines appeared before the "wd: if
incorrect..." one:

wd: didn't find any specific known PCI IDE controller, trying by class
wd: PCI bus/dev/func 0/1/1, vend/dev 8086/7010, prog_if 80, BMIBA 0000C001
wd: unknown but possibly usable PCI IDE controller; assuming UDMA 133
wd: if incorrect, add wd.udma=33 (or 66 or 100) to your bootstring
wd 0/0: IDENTIFY DEVICE: Status 58, Error 00
wd 0/0: non-ATAPI device present
wd 0/0: Max MBoard UDMA mode=6, Max drive UDMA mode=4
wd 0/0: BIOS selected UDMA mode=5 for drive
** wd 0/0: UDMA disabled by bootstring **
wd 0/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
wd 1/0: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 41, Error 04
wd 1/0: ATAPI_IDENTIFY: Status 48, Error 00, ATAPI = yes
wd 1/1: IDENTIFY_DEVICE: Status 00, Error 00 (no device)
%adapter 0x0170-0x177 15 - type=IDE ctlr=secondary dvr=wd
....
....
WARNING: hd: no root disk controller was found
hd: a Boot-Time Loadable Driver may be required

Again, I tried with wd.udma=33: the drive tried by reprogram the ATA
drive to UDMA mode 2 and again I had a UDMA timing mismatch. The same
went with wd.udma=66 and wd.udma=100.


> the next step will be to boot with "defbootstr link=invd maindebug".
> That invokes scodb (kernel debugger) early in the kernel's life, then
> you can set breakpoints inside "wd" and trace the recognition code, see
> where it goes wrong.

Well, without further guidance, this is outside of my limited scope :-(

>
> =============================================================================
>
> BTW, are you sure it's "invd" and not "ivga"? "invd" works around a
> fairly specific nVidia BIOS behavior; "ivga" is much more generic. (The
> issues are completely different and could possibly both occur on the
> same system, though I've never heard of that.) "ivga" works around a
> far more common BIOS problem: incorrect setting of the CMOS video type
> value. In fact, I see that Qemu uses the Bochs video BIOS, and that
> this very bug was fixed in version 0.5c of that BIOS. See
> http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios/. That page has compiled BIOS images; you
> should be able to download a newer one into your Qemu/bios directory.
> (Update both vgabios.bin and vgabios-cirrus.bin, I'm not sure how to
> tell which one Qemu will use on your machine.) Then you shouldn't need
> "ivga".
>
> On further examination, I suspect that Qemu's BIOS may have both issues!
> So you may really mean you are using "invd". Why would it not need
> "ivga"? Because it gets lucky -- the wrong value that it leaves in CMOS
> isn't wrong enough to bother OSR5.
>
> But you said "oss653a", which is the "ivga" supplement, so in the end my
> guess is that you're using "ivga" and just typed "invd" into your post
> by mistake.

Well, I'm pretty sure about that. Just to refresh my flaky memory, I
went up again today and I started by using oss653a (link=ivga) but I
ended up with a blank screen.

So I gave oss661a.btld a try (link=invd) and I was able to get to the
laundry list and actually "see" its content so it's the invd which did
the trick.

Concerning the vgabios, I used the default one (01 Dec 2004) and I also
tried version 0.5d which, with Windows XP/2003, gave me some graphic
problems (4 colours, low resolution); nonetheless, even version 0.5d of
the VGA bios had problems with OS 5.0.7 so I ended up by reverting to
the original one and using the oss661a BTLD.

>
> =============================================================================
>
> I've been running OSR5 under VMware Workstation for several years now.
> There were some problems at first. These days I have great success with
> it. VMware now makes a "player" available for free, lets you run
> previously built virtual machines. You could probably install OSR5 onto
> that, giving you another free virtual machine that can run OSR5 (without
> all these issues). But without source -- so if your real goal here was
> to study the emulation mechanics themselves, that won't do.

I think that, unless you have more ideas, I'll stick to VmWare Player
for Linux (and this should sound good for you, right? :-); studyng the
emulation mechanics is way above my knowledge for now.

>
> There, is that scary enough? ;-}
>

As usual, from you :-)

>
>>Bela<

Thanks,
Roberto

--
Roberto Zini - r.zini<@AT@>strhold.it
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Has anybody around here seen an aircraft carrier?"
(Pete "Maverick" Mitchell - Top Gun)
.

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