Re: OSR5 on VMware Server Beta SCSI?

Chad G wrote:

Has anyone had any luck with running OSR5.0.6-7 on the new VMware server
Beta??

I used to work at SCO and now at VMware. I haven't personally tried
this, but I have installed OSR507 on VMware WorkStation and VMware ESX
Server. I've also been working with someone who is trying it on the
VMware Server beta. The issues are very similar across the VMware
emulation line.

It seems to work fine with IDE drives, but attempting to load the BTLDs
for the SCSI adapters always results in a "Bad magic number" error. I've
done quite a bit of research and experimentation trying to fix this, but
I'm strking out so far, has anyone else tried this and found a solution??

It would really help if you said _when_ in the install you have this
problem. Probably the best way would be to show the last few lines of
console output (the error message and enough lines of context before it
so we can see what was going on).

But I think I know what you're running into. This is happening in the
OSR5 boot program (before the kernel starts), while it's trying to link
the BTLD into the kernel it's loading. The problem is simple. For some
reason, boot is seeing the floppy (image) as the wrong density.

I know of two workarounds. One is to actually write the BTLD to a
floppy and attach your VM to the machine's physical floppy drive,
instead of a floppy image. Every time I've tried that, it has correctly
seen it as an 1.44MB 80 track 18 sector floppy.

The other way is to explicitly state the density while loading the
BTLD:

Boot
: defbootstr link=fd(61)blc
: defbootstr link=fd(61)lsil

fd(61) is "2nd floppy drive, 80 tracks, 18 sectors", equivalent to
/dev/fd1135ds18 on an installed OSR5 system. (While booting from an
OSR5 install CD, "floppy 0" is the boot floppy image on the CD.)

I have tried with both VMware SCSI adapters, LSI & BusLogic, with the same
results.

Once you get past the current problem, you hit the next ones, which are
that neither of the BTLDs shipped by SCO are actually compatible with
the VMware emulation of the respective adapters.

For "blc", SCO fixed the driver problem long ago but forgot to post it
as a separate BTLD. They have just recently corrected that; the
required driver can be found at:

ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/openserver5/507/drivers/blc_3.05.1/

For "lsil", it is possible to bring the driver up by using the OSR5
kernel debugger during bootup, but this is involved -- and unnecessary.
Just use "blc". I'm talking to an engineer at SCO about the possibility
of revising "lsil" to be compatible with VMware, but as both emulations
are equally capable and similar in performance, there isn't really much
reason to do it.

Two other workarounds you may find useful:

1. mouse goes insane after a little while: add "kbm.wheel=no" to your
bootstring. Not needed during ISL. Once installed, edit
/etc/default/boot and add that to the end of DEFBOOTSTR. This
disables the mouse wheel (which is a bit of a drag), but it's worth
it to be able to use the mouse at all.

2. X display comes up blank: run:

/opt/K/SCO/Vidconf/*/usr/lib/vidconf/scripts/grafinit.sh -r

You are likely to need to do this each time the VM is rebooted, so
maybe add it to an rc script.

If you started an X server and are staring at a blank screen, hit
<Alt SysRq> and then <Enter> to exit the X server. Then flip to
multiscreen 1 (Ctrl-Alt-F1) quickly before the server restarts. Run
the `grafinit.sh -r` sequence. Remember that the very next X server
you see might already have been started before you ran the
correction, so it too may be bad; look to the next one after it.

Bela<
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OSR5 on VMware Server Beta SCSI?
    ... to be unable to integrate the BTLD into the kernel during the install, ... floppy image with the exact same results, on 2 different physical VMware ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: OSR5 on VMware Server Beta SCSI?
    ... to be unable to integrate the BTLD into the kernel during the install, ... floppy image with the exact same results, on 2 different physical VMware ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: TO recover passewd, i need ur help!~~
    ... >>>to recover password of SCO UNIX OPENSERVER5..0.7. ... >>>i tried to boot from boot floppy and edit the passwd file. ... >> Boot from the sco install floppy not one you made with mkdev fd or scoadmin. ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: OSR5 on VMware Server Beta SCSI?
    ... CD "Boot:" prompt. ... to be unable to integrate the BTLD into the kernel during the install, ... floppy image with the exact same results, on 2 different physical VMware ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: vmware and sco? Since when?
    ... I think VMware fixed something between 4.0 and 4.51. ... There are no tips or tricks, just put in your SCO CD and go through your ... I did try the install floppy disk first and it didn't ... resolution my Host machine was running. ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)