[9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[MoJoJoJo]

Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
session?

VMware is an app that creates virtual machines within NT or Linux, and
you can configure your virtual machines to install quite a few
different OSes.  http://www.vmware.com/

[9fans] Re: REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[David Bulkow]

I have managed to do so with release 3 and a patched set of install
scripts.  Graphics is not supported and the ethernet is non-functional.
With rel2 I managed to get graphics working (640x480x1) and was trying to
work out the ethernet issues, but I was never successful.

MoJoJoJo wrote:

> Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
> session?
>
> VMware is an app that creates virtual machines within NT or Linux, and
> you can configure your virtual machines to install quite a few
> different OSes.  http://www.vmware.com/

[9fans] Re: REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[MoJoJoJo]

Way cool! Would you happen to have some hints, or even a 'how to'
available?

TIA!

On Fri, 6 Oct 2000 12:51:38 GMT, David Bulkow <dbulkow@sw.stratus.com>
wrote:

>I have managed to do so with release 3 and a patched set of install
>scripts.  Graphics is not supported and the ethernet is non-functional.
>With rel2 I managed to get graphics working (640x480x1) and was trying to
>work out the ethernet issues, but I was never successful.
>
>MoJoJoJo wrote:
>
>> Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
>> session?
>>
>> VMware is an app that creates virtual machines within NT or Linux, and
>> you can configure your virtual machines to install quite a few
>> different OSes.  http://www.vmware.com/

Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[jmk]

MoJoJoJo <MoJoJoJo@ppuff.com>
	Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
	session?

I briefly lookde at this when it came up on the mailing list a while ago.
VMware presents some 'hardware' in the virtual machine for which we have no
drivers, e.g. the ethernet controller and the graphics chip. I believe
the ethernet controller is a variant on the AMD controller for which we do
have a driver, so that can probably be fixed easily. I've no idea what the
graphics controller looks like.

If I could be bothered installing NT or Linux on a system here I'd take a
closer look.

--jim

Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[Digby Tarvin]

> 	Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
> 	session?
>
> I briefly lookde at this when it came up on the mailing list a while ago.
> VMware presents some 'hardware' in the virtual machine for which we have no
> drivers, e.g. the ethernet controller and the graphics chip. I believe
> the ethernet controller is a variant on the AMD controller for which we do
> have a driver, so that can probably be fixed easily. I've no idea what the
> graphics controller looks like.
>
> If I could be bothered installing NT or Linux on a system here I'd take a
> closer look.
>
> --jim
>
I have looked into this also. Unfortunately the virtual machine does not
seem to emulate any standard graphics controller except in VGA mode,
and the response I got from VMWare when I enquired was that they
consider the interface details to be proprietary.

They seem to think that getting reasonable graphics performance
requires clever tricks that give them an edge over potential
competitors. I suspect it is not handled as a 'virtual device'
but rather handles the display by communicating requests to the
host operating system.

Thus unless you can work with a VGA screen, you are restricted to
guest operating systems for which VMware have deemed to make
display drivers available. I have not checked, but that would
seem to indicate that the Linux driver is provided as binary
only. Does anyone know if that is really the case?

Of course it still seems that getting the network driver going
is a rather essential first step before being able to do anything
useful with a guest Plan9 system. Then at least a guest file and/or
cpu server should be a possibility. Their docs suggest this is
an 'AMD PCnet-PCI II' compatible.

The SCSI is 'BusLogic BT-958' and sound is 'Sound Blaster 16'.

I am planning to install Linux on one of my systems in a couple of
weeks when things are a little less busy here to do some experimenting.

Until then I am only working on what I have been told...

Regards,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[Latchesar Ionkov]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 07:02:08PM +0100, Digby Tarvin said:
> > 	Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
> > 	session?
> >
> > I briefly lookde at this when it came up on the mailing list a while ago.
> > VMware presents some 'hardware' in the virtual machine for which we have no
> > drivers, e.g. the ethernet controller and the graphics chip. I believe
> > the ethernet controller is a variant on the AMD controller for which we do
> > have a driver, so that can probably be fixed easily. I've no idea what the
> > graphics controller looks like.
> >
> > If I could be bothered installing NT or Linux on a system here I'd take a
> > closer look.
> >
> > --jim
> >
> I have looked into this also. Unfortunately the virtual machine does not
> seem to emulate any standard graphics controller except in VGA mode,
> and the response I got from VMWare when I enquired was that they
> consider the interface details to be proprietary.
>
> They seem to think that getting reasonable graphics performance
> requires clever tricks that give them an edge over potential
> competitors. I suspect it is not handled as a 'virtual device'
> but rather handles the display by communicating requests to the
> host operating system.
>
> Thus unless you can work with a VGA screen, you are restricted to
> guest operating systems for which VMware have deemed to make
> display drivers available. I have not checked, but that would
> seem to indicate that the Linux driver is provided as binary
> only. Does anyone know if that is really the case?

Yes, they distribute binary-only X server.

	Lucho

Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?

[David Bulkow]

The ethernet is indeed the AMD PCnet-PCI, but VMWare does not support 32-bit
register access.  There is more lurking though, because after I changed the
register commands to 16-bit I was still unable to coax an interrupt from the
device.  After reading back the initialization parameters to verify I was sending
it correctly I was stumped.  Work took over and I haven't been back to the code
:-(

Digby Tarvin wrote:

> >       Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware
> >       session?
> >
> > I briefly lookde at this when it came up on the mailing list a while ago.
> > VMware presents some 'hardware' in the virtual machine for which we have no
> > drivers, e.g. the ethernet controller and the graphics chip. I believe
> > the ethernet controller is a variant on the AMD controller for which we do
> > have a driver, so that can probably be fixed easily. I've no idea what the
> > graphics controller looks like.
> >
> > If I could be bothered installing NT or Linux on a system here I'd take a
> > closer look.
> >
> > --jim
> >
> I have looked into this also. Unfortunately the virtual machine does not
> seem to emulate any standard graphics controller except in VGA mode,
> and the response I got from VMWare when I enquired was that they
> consider the interface details to be proprietary.
>
> They seem to think that getting reasonable graphics performance
> requires clever tricks that give them an edge over potential
> competitors. I suspect it is not handled as a 'virtual device'
> but rather handles the display by communicating requests to the
> host operating system.
>
> Thus unless you can work with a VGA screen, you are restricted to
> guest operating systems for which VMware have deemed to make
> display drivers available. I have not checked, but that would
> seem to indicate that the Linux driver is provided as binary
> only. Does anyone know if that is really the case?
>
> Of course it still seems that getting the network driver going
> is a rather essential first step before being able to do anything
> useful with a guest Plan9 system. Then at least a guest file and/or
> cpu server should be a possibility. Their docs suggest this is
> an 'AMD PCnet-PCI II' compatible.
>
> The SCSI is 'BusLogic BT-958' and sound is 'Sound Blaster 16'.
>
> I am planning to install Linux on one of my systems in a couple of
> weeks when things are a little less busy here to do some experimenting.
>
> Until then I am only working on what I have been told...
>
> Regards,
> DigbyT
> --
> Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
> http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk