[9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Joel C. Salomon]

My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).

Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?

—Joel

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Gabriel Díaz]

Hello


If you want to buy a desktop computer, and feel like running native plan9, I've got this machine (desktop) two/three weeks ago and run Plan9 reasonably well, and of course the other "mainstream" OS like win7 and linux. As for VM, i've used vmware server 2.0 (free) and runs quite well, 9grid.es was a plan9 hosted in that vm and was running quite well for some years.

Case: A model of Coolermaster with no blinking lights and no nothing but the chassis
Power supply: 750W
Motherboard: ASUS P6T SE
Memory: 4GB 1333MHz
Processor: Core i7-920
Video card: ATI HD5750 (two of them)
Hardisk: WDC WD3200AAJS-55M0A0 (westerdigital 7200rpm 320gb sata)
Monitor: Samsum P2250
Soundcard: USB ALTEC Lansign speakers

I've got on ebay long ago the IBM/lenovo 3 buttons mouse, and a random keyboard.

Price ~950€ plus tax, i guess you can get more or less the same for 950$.

So far in native plan9 i've got working:
- sata with 9atom.iso (booting and installing fine) 
- sound seems to be recognized but not tested, 
- usb mouse, 
- usb disk
- lan (realtek RTL8168c/8111c), 
- video vesa 1280x1024x8, i can't get more than 8 bit. . .which is a pity. . i guess some vbe digging could solve this. When i change the color depth the screen show weird things, but still showing only 8 bit color weird things.
- 4 cores works

main issue is interrupt count does not go below 4000. . .need to dig more into this, probably to compose a mail to the list :), but it does not hurt too much, at least for now.

slds.

gabi




----- Original Message ----
From: Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Sent: Thu, April 15, 2010 7:11:49 PM
Subject: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).

Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?

—Joel

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[erik quanstrom]

> main issue is interrupt count does not go below 4000. . .need to dig more into this, probably to compose a mail to the list :), but it does not hurt too much, at least for now.

that shouldn't be happening unless you're doing a lot of disk/network
io.

if you're using 9atom, one would expect ~1100 interrupts/sec since
HZ is set to 1000.  this makes timing work better and doesn't cost much
performance.  in 9atom, /dev/irqalloc has an extra field that is the count
of total interrupts.  i'm guessing that you have a ringing ide interrupt.
but irqalloc should let you know who's the culprit.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Gabriel Diaz]

Hello erik,

Thursday, April 15, 2010, 8:44:08 PM, you wrote:

>> main issue is interrupt count does not go below 4000. . .need to dig more into this, probably to compose a mail to the list :), but it does not hurt too much, at least for now.

> that shouldn't be happening unless you're doing a lot of disk/network
> io.

> if you're using 9atom, one would expect ~1100 interrupts/sec since
> HZ is set to 1000.  this makes timing work better and doesn't cost much
> performance.  in 9atom, /dev/irqalloc has an extra field that is the count
> of total interrupts.  i'm guessing that you have a ringing ide interrupt.
> but irqalloc should let you know who's the culprit.

> - erik


yes,  clock  is  the  one which has the count higher. . .other devices
are getting lower numbers by many orders.

gabi



-- 
Best regards,
 Gabriel                            mailto:gdiaz@rejaa.com

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Federico G. Benavento]

vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
the slowest

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote:
> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
>
> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
> normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
>
> —Joel
>
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Apr 15 14:57:21 EDT 2010, benavento@gmail.com wrote:
> vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
> the slowest

there are relatively easy things we could do to make virtual box better,
but as it doesn't run well on linux, it's hard to find the motivation.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Rodolfo (kix)]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 380 bytes --]

I am agreed with Federico,

vmware. Do not spend time with other emulators.


El 15 de abr de 2010, 9:02 p.m., "Federico G. Benavento" <
benavento@gmail.com> escribió:

vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
the slowest

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com>
wrote: > My computer died...
--
Federico G. Benavento

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 687 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Patrick Kelly]

>From: 9fans-bounces@9fans.net [mailto:9fans-bounces@9fans.net] On Behalf Of Rodolfo (kix)
>Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 2:20 AM
>To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
>Subject: Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install
>
>I am agreed with Federico,
>vmware. Do not spend time with other emulators.

The only emulator you're spending time on is Qemu, the rest are virtualizers or simulators, and there is a significant difference.
Emulators are much slower, because of what they have to do.

>El 15 de abr de 2010, 9:02 p.m., "Federico G. Benavento" <benavento@gmail.com> escribió:
>
>vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
>the slowest
>On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote: > My computer died...
>--
>Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On 16 Apr 2010, at 17:40, Patrick Kelly wrote:

>> From: 9fans-bounces@9fans.net [mailto:9fans-bounces@9fans.net] On  
>> Behalf Of Rodolfo (kix)
>> Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 2:20 AM
>> To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
>> Subject: Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install
>>
>> I am agreed with Federico,
>> vmware. Do not spend time with other emulators.
>
> The only emulator you're spending time on is Qemu, the rest are  
> virtualizers or simulators, and there is a significant difference.
> Emulators are much slower, because of what they have to do.

Qemu is capable of full emulation, but when host & guest architecture  
match (or are compatible, e.g. x86_32 guest and x86_64 host) it's a  
virtualizer. Given x86 on x86, there is a world of difference between  
Bochs's performance and Qemu's.

Qemu's display is slow, whatever other factors exist. Drawterm to a  
qemu cpu server is very much faster. I can't speak for disk IO except  
to say it seems fast under my light usage.

Also, to nit-pick, don't all virtualisers emulate peripheral hardware?

>
>> El 15 de abr de 2010, 9:02 p.m., "Federico G. Benavento" <benavento@gmail.com 
>> > escribió:
>>
>> vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
>> the slowest
>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com 
>> > wrote: > My computer died...
>> --
>> Federico G. Benavento
>
>

-- 
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. -- Alan Perlis

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Patrick Kelly]

> >
> > The only emulator you're spending time on is Qemu, the rest are
> > virtualizers or simulators, and there is a significant difference.
> > Emulators are much slower, because of what they have to do.
> 
> Qemu is capable of full emulation, but when host & guest architecture match (or are compatible, e.g. x86_32 guest and x86_64 host)
> it's a virtualizer. Given x86 on x86, there is a world of difference between Bochs's performance and Qemu's.

It's mostly full and not completely accurate.
I don't use Qemu so this may be wrong, but I was under the impression Qemu was an emulator unless you used kqemu, and then it lost emulation capability's.

> Qemu's display is slow, whatever other factors exist. Drawterm to a qemu cpu server is very much faster. I can't speak for disk IO
> except to say it seems fast under my light usage.
> 
> Also, to nit-pick, don't all virtualisers emulate peripheral hardware?

For peripheral hardware, emulators and virtualizers are mostly the same, but that isn't the main reason most people use them, it's about the execution environment, which involves how the CPU is handled. Seeing as you didn't bring up a single full system emulator, I doubt you care more about peripherals.

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On 16 Apr 2010, at 18:48, Patrick Kelly wrote:

>>>
>>> The only emulator you're spending time on is Qemu, the rest are
>>> virtualizers or simulators, and there is a significant difference.
>>> Emulators are much slower, because of what they have to do.
>>
>> Qemu is capable of full emulation, but when host & guest
>> architecture match (or are compatible, e.g. x86_32 guest and x86_64
>> host)
>> it's a virtualizer. Given x86 on x86, there is a world of
>> difference between Bochs's performance and Qemu's.
>
> It's mostly full and not completely accurate.
> I don't use Qemu so this may be wrong, but I was under the
> impression Qemu was an emulator unless you used kqemu, and then it
> lost emulation capability's.

It can virtualise better with kqemu or kvm, but... well, perhaps I
should say what I know rather than try to categorise. Take 3 set-ups.
A: arm guest, x86 host. Full emulation, kqemu cannot be used. B: x86
guest, x86 host without kqemu. C: x86 guest, x86 host with kqemu.
There is a much bigger performance gap between A and B than between B
and C.

>
>> Qemu's display is slow, whatever other factors exist. Drawterm to a
>> qemu cpu server is very much faster. I can't speak for disk IO
>> except to say it seems fast under my light usage.
>>
>> Also, to nit-pick, don't all virtualisers emulate peripheral
>> hardware?
>
> For peripheral hardware, emulators and virtualizers are mostly the
> same, but that isn't the main reason most people use them, it's
> about the execution environment, which involves how the CPU is
> handled. Seeing as you didn't bring up a single full system
> emulator, I doubt you care more about peripherals.

*nods* Not a big point for me right now.

>
>

--
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. -- Alan Perlis

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[James Chapman]

This afternoon I downloaded a trial version of VM Fusion (Version
3.0.2 (232708)) and a fresh plan9.iso.bz2 and installed it on my core
2 due macbook running OS X Leopard (Version 10.5.8).

It works quite nicely, graphics and networking are both working. The
only things that tripped me up were I had to delete the IDE emulating
hard disk image and create a SCSI emulating before installation and
choose xga instead of the usual vesa for the screen.

I have had parallels working on several occasions in the past but a
recent attempt to get it working again failed. I couldn't even get it
to boot the installer.

James

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 9:19 AM, Rodolfo (kix) <kix@kix.es> wrote:
> I am agreed with Federico,
>
> vmware. Do not spend time with other emulators.
>
> El 15 de abr de 2010, 9:02 p.m., "Federico G.  Benavento"
> <benavento@gmail.com> escribió:
>
> vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
> the slowest
>
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com>
> wrote: > My computer died...
>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>
>

[9fans] Parallels 5

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> I have had parallels working on several occasions in the past but a
> recent attempt to get it working again failed. I couldn't even get it
> to boot the installer.

I just did a Parallels 5 on Snow Leopard a few days ago. To get anywhere
you have to use a 9atom ISO. I have a terminal instance installed but
haven't had time to do any serious banging on it. I have noticed that
twice now 9pcf has panicked while the VM instance was sitting idle. I
don't remember the panic message, but I should be able to reproduce it
easily enough.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

Also, "echo -n 'accelerated 0' > /dev/mousectl" is required to get the
mouse under control.

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Apr 16 15:57:33 EDT 2010, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> Also, "echo -n 'accelerated 0' > /dev/mousectl" is required to get the
> mouse under control.
>

i've turned off mouse accelleration completely in 9atom.  i do
the multplication in the kernel, rather than relying on the
mouse to do it correctly.  i've found that kvms tend to screw
this part of the protocol up.  and really, why go to the trouble
of programming a mouse to do a multiplication?

- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[erik quanstrom]

> I just did a Parallels 5 on Snow Leopard a few days ago. To get anywhere
> you have to use a 9atom ISO. I have a terminal instance installed but
> haven't had time to do any serious banging on it. I have noticed that
> twice now 9pcf has panicked while the VM instance was sitting idle. I
> don't remember the panic message, but I should be able to reproduce it
> easily enough.

please send the panic message.  would like to fix.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> please send the panic message.  would like to fix.

panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
dumpstack disabled
cpu0: exiting

(the panic line does print twice)

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Apr 16 16:55:02 EDT 2010, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > please send the panic message.  would like to fix.
>
> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
> dumpstack disabled
> cpu0: exiting
>
> (the panic line does print twice)

please turn off *nodumpstack.  i'll need a full backtrace.
error is being called from an interrupt.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

hmm. I'm using parallels 5 on leopard (not snow) and it works just fine with the
std distribution.

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 11:04 PM, erik quanstrom
<quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote:
> On Fri Apr 16 16:55:02 EDT 2010, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
>> > please send the panic message.  would like to fix.
>>
>> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
>> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
>> dumpstack disabled
>> cpu0: exiting
>>
>> (the panic line does print twice)
>
> please turn off *nodumpstack.  i'll need a full backtrace.
> error is being called from an interrupt.
>
> - erik
>
>

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Apr 16 18:15:29 EDT 2010, nemo@lsub.org wrote:
> hmm. I'm using parallels 5 on leopard (not snow) and it works just fine with the
> std distribution.
>

according to my sources, parallels is a virtualizer, not an
emulator, so your milage may depend on your hardware.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels 5

[erik quanstrom]

On Fri Apr 16 16:51:50 EDT 2010, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > please send the panic message.  would like to fix.
>
> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
> panic: kernel fault: no user process pc=0xf01f047b addr=0x000002cc
> dumpstack disabled
> cpu0: exiting
>
> (the panic line does print twice)

looks like the vesa emulation barfs on screen blanking.
in parallels.  wierd.

the distribution doesn't have vesa screen blanking and
it is called from interrupt context (mouseclock).

here's a fix for that bug

ladd; diffy -c vgavesa.c
/n/dump/2010/0416/sys/src/9/pc/vgavesa.c:167,173 - vgavesa.c:167,176
  		u.bx = 0x0101;
  	else
  		u.bx = 0x0001;
- 	vbecall(&u);
+ 	if(!waserror()){
+ 		vbecall(&u);
+ 		poperror();
+ 	}
  }

- erik

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Joel C. Salomon]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
>> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
>> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
>> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
>> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
>>
>> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
>> normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
>>
> vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
> the slowest

How about Xen?  Has anyone here had luck wit it?

—Joel C. Salomon

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Patrick Kelly]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 9fans-bounces@9fans.net [mailto:9fans-bounces@9fans.net] On Behalf Of Joel C. Salomon
> Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 10:51 AM
> To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> Subject: Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install
> 
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
> >> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
> >> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
> >> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
> >> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
> >>
> >> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a
> >> somewhat normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
> >>
> > vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being the slowest
> 
> How about Xen?  Has anyone here had luck wit it?

I haven't tried, but I was going to see if Hyper-V was possible. I've already stated VirtualPC works (conditionally), there's a possibility Hyper-V might too.
 
> —Joel C. Salomon

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Georg Lehner]

Joel C. Salomon wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Federico G. Benavento
> <benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
>>> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
>>> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
>>> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
>>> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
>>>
>>> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
>>> normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
>>>
>>>
>> vmware, the rest just suck, qemu and virtual box being
>> the slowest
>>
>
> How about Xen?  Has anyone here had luck wit it?
>
> —Joel C. Salomon
>
>
Years ago i had run Plan9 inside Xen and wrote even some tutorial how to
set it up.  After finding out, that
filesystem performance was very bad i stopped perusing that project, so
i can't tell how it'd go with current
Xen.

Regards,

    Jorge-León

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Patrick Kelly]

Hyper-V is negative for 2008r2.

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Skip Tavakkolian]

i would think that 9vx is the logical choice for linux.  the free
vmware player works well on vista and win7. i used qemu
for a while and it seemed stable and usable.

> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
>
> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
> normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
>
> —Joel

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

ymmv, but here are two configurations I use:

VMware fusion on Mac -- but only to run cpu/fs/auth -- I use either drawterm or ACME-sac to get into it.  It is very snappy.  Easily as snappy (for me) as my standalone Plan 9 equivalent and I do basically all my work in this environment.  I do not run Venti on it, the plan was to use venti running on the host, linux box, or on the actual plan 9 box to back up the vm, but I never got around to setting it up.

Plan 9 running on kvm on Intel with a similar configuration (no graphics, just cpu/fs/auth) and without venti.

I've also dabbled with looking at using underlying Linux or MacOSX file systems to host files for the root of the Plan 9 system to make things even easier.  As it is my source directory is bound from /mnt term even though my root is from fossil on the virtual disk.  There are probably better file server configurations, but essentially I don't really trust fossil from a performance or stability standpoint.

Ron has his lguest stuff, that seems to work pretty well too, but he's in the process of fixing it for more recent kernels as the underlying platform is still a bit of a moving target.

    -eric



On Apr 15, 2010, at 12:11 PM, Joel C. Salomon wrote:

> My computer died, so I'm in the market for a new one.  I figure I'd
> like to get back into hacking on Plan 9 so I plan to install it
> beneath a VM in whatever machine I buy.  I'm even considering Windows
> 7 Pro with Virtual PC, but I think I'd prefer Xen or one of the
> Linux-based things (VirtualBox, etc.).
> 
> Ease of installation is important, as is the ability to run a somewhat
> normal (Windows or Linux) host OS.  Are there any recommendations?
> 
> —Joel
> 

Re: [9fans] Recommended emulators/VMs for P9 install

[erik quanstrom]

> There are probably better file server configurations,
> but essentially I don't really trust fossil from a performance
> or stability standpoint.

it's curious that fossil is typically considered the only choice.
what about ...
- kfs
- cwfs
- ken's fs in another vm.

- erik