[9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

It's been a long time since I installed plan9. I was able to install a very recent build of plan9 (12/1) under the latest Parallels/Mac Build 5582 and get the the point where I can log in as Glenda. I am using a 2.6 GGz, 18" MB Pro, if that matters.

It runs at the highest acceleration level with VT-X support but I installed it with no acceleration and VT-X support off.

Issues:

1. pcirouting: South bridge FFFF, FFFF not found

2. boot from floppy doesn't seem to be able to detect the CD

3. boot from CD, after choosing Install (option 1) I get
"Unknown boot device: sdD0!cdboot!9pcflop.gz"
Boot devices: fd0"

Choosing "sdC1! cdboot!9pcflop.gz" worked for me.

4. If you install the plan9 MBR which claims to be able to read past 2 GB it doesn't seem to be able to find what I put at > 2 GB.

5. I used a 8 GB virtual disk with a 1 GB fat32 partition first. I used a win98 startup disk to make that fs using fdisk.

6. I used the undocumented /MBR switch to fdisk to install the win98 MBR.

7. Booting from disk seems to work.

8. Making the boot floppy fails because it wants "sdD0" as in step 3, but there is not way to override "sdD0".

9. The worst issue for me is that 3 button mouse emulation in Parallels seems to unsupported or broken. I can get the button 3 popup menu, by using button-2, but as soon as I move my finger on the trackpad, the menu goes away. Maybe I'm confused about all this, but I've used Acme before I could not make a new window and get a shell or do an ls in acme. I know I could use drawterm.

I filed two support requests with Parallels:

1. I requested that Parallels make plan9 a supported OS or at least do QA on it with each new release.

2. I requested support for a 3 button mouse with the defaults for button-2 (cmd) and button-3 (opt). These have been Apple standard since the dawn of the Macintosh although this is little known. If you don't believe me get an original Mac and Apple Smalltalk run it or check the doc.
--
~leb

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[erik quanstrom]

> 1. pcirouting: South bridge FFFF, FFFF not found

this is a harmless informational message.

> 4. If you install the plan9 MBR which claims to be able to read past 2 GB it doesn't seem to be able to find what I put at > 2 GB.

the mbr needs to be installed at the front of the disk.  do you mean pbs?  there is
a seperate pbslba.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

At 7:23 AM -0500 12/9/07, erik quanstrom wrote:
> > 1. pcirouting: South bridge FFFF, FFFF not found
>
>this is a harmless informational message.
>
>> 4. If you install the plan9 MBR which claims to be able to read past 2 GB it doesn't seem to be able to find what I put at > 2 GB.
>
>the mbr needs to be installed at the front of the disk.  do you mean pbs?  there is
>a seperate pbslba.

1. Gee I really thought the plan9 installer complained that my MBR would not work with a 2 GB FAT32 partition followed by the plan9 partition, and offered to install a new one. My memory could be faulty. I have since switched to a 1 GB FAT32 to work around that.

2. BTW, the Parallels people responded to the request for 3 buttom mouse support.

"At the moment Parallels Desktop emulates a generic 2-button mouse with
scroller.It means that you won't be able to utilize your mouse's extra
features with Parallels Desktop.

Probably we will develop extra features support in the future."

Umm sounds like a response from a low level QA person. Perhaps I can contact the product manager.

leb

>
>- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On 2007-Dec-9, at 10:40 , Lawrence E. Bakst wrote:

> "At the moment Parallels Desktop emulates a generic 2-button mouse  
> with
> scroller.It means that you won't be able to utilize your mouse's extra
> features with Parallels Desktop.

And I find this rather odd.  Both Solaris and FreeBSD (running in  
Parallels) see all three buttons on any external mouse I use.  It's  
only Plan9 where the oddball behaviour persists.

Someone needs to get annoyed enough about this to add some debugging  
code to the P9 mouse driver and find out just what events the kernel  
is getting from Parallels.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Russ Cox]

erik:
>> 4. If you install the plan9 MBR which claims to be able to read past 2 GB it doesn't seem to be able to find what I put at > 2 GB.
>
> the mbr needs to be installed at the front of the disk.  
> do you mean pbs?  there is a seperate pbslba.

Although the MBR is installed at the front of the disk,
it reads from other locations on the disk (to load the PBS).
The PBS in turn reads 9load.  Both the MBR and the PBS
need to support LBA offsets if you are going to put the
Plan 9 partition far into the disk.  The difference between
the two is that Jim managed to fit *both* CHS and LBA 
into the Plan 9 /386/mbr, but there was no way to fit
both into the PBS (hence the separate /386/pbs and /386/pbslba).

lawrence:
> 1. Gee I really thought the plan9 installer complained 
> that my MBR would not work with a 2 GB FAT32 partition 
> followed by the plan9 partition, and offered to install a 
> new one. My memory could be faulty. I have since 
> switched to a 1 GB FAT32 to work around that.

Installing the Plan 9 MBR should have been able to work
with a Plan 9 partition many GB into the disk.  Without poking
at your system I can't answer why it didn't in your case.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

>lawrence:
>> 1. Gee I really thought the plan9 installer complained
>> that my MBR would not work with a 2 GB FAT32 partition
>> followed by the plan9 partition, and offered to install a
>> new one. My memory could be faulty. I have since
>> switched to a 1 GB FAT32 to work around that.
>
>Installing the Plan 9 MBR should have been able to work
>with a Plan 9 partition many GB into the disk.  Without poking
>at your system I can't answer why it didn't in your case.
>
>Russ


It was running under Parallels. It takes about an hour to do a "virtual" install of plan9 on my dual 2.6 GHz system, but that was will all acceleration off. Once I get a 3 button mouse if I have time I will try it again, perhaps with acceleration on.

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1353 bytes --]

On Dec 9, 2007 10:40 AM, Lawrence E. Bakst <ml@iridescent.org> wrote:

> At 7:23 AM -0500 12/9/07, erik quanstrom wrote:
> > > 1. pcirouting: South bridge FFFF, FFFF not found
> >
> >this is a harmless informational message.
> >
> >> 4. If you install the plan9 MBR which claims to be able to read past 2
> GB it doesn't seem to be able to find what I put at > 2 GB.
> >
> >the mbr needs to be installed at the front of the disk.  do you mean pbs?
>  there is
> >a seperate pbslba.
>
> 1. Gee I really thought the plan9 installer complained that my MBR would
> not work with a 2 GB FAT32 partition followed by the plan9 partition, and
> offered to install a new one. My memory could be faulty. I have since
> switched to a 1 GB FAT32 to work around that.
>
> 2. BTW, the Parallels people responded to the request for 3 buttom mouse
> support.
>

I'm positive I had 3 buttons working before.  Do you have a 3 button mouse?


>
> "At the moment Parallels Desktop emulates a generic 2-button mouse with
> scroller.It means that you won't be able to utilize your mouse's extra
> features with Parallels Desktop.
>
> Probably we will develop extra features support in the future."
>
> Umm sounds like a response from a low level QA person. Perhaps I can
> contact the product manager.
>
> leb
>
> >
> >- erik
>
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1865 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

At 4:29 PM -0800 12/9/07, David Leimbach wrote:
>On Dec 9, 2007 10:40 AM, Lawrence E. Bakst <<mailto:ml@iridescent.org>ml@iridescent.org> wrote:
>
>...



>2. BTW, the Parallels people responded to the request for 3 buttom mouse support.
>
>
>I'm positive I had 3 buttons working before.  Do you have a 3 button mouse?

I have some nice 3 button serial and PS2 mice. I did hook up an Apple USB Mighty Mouse (worst mouse ever, you tilt L/R to get alternate buttons) to my laptop and set it up for button 1, 2, and 3. It didn't seem to work any better than the trackpad, but I have to admit it was late at might and I didn't work at it very long until I gave up.

leb

> 
>
>
>"At the moment Parallels Desktop emulates a generic 2-button mouse with
>scroller.It means that you won't be able to utilize your mouse's extra
>features with Parallels Desktop.
>
>Probably we will develop extra features support in the future."
>
>Umm sounds like a response from a low level QA person. Perhaps I can contact the product manager.
>
>leb
>
>>
>>- erik

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Joshua Wood]

We have at least two regular users doing this with external three- 
button or two+scrollwheel on Mac Parallels 5582.

We have a variety of apple mighty mouse, logitech, etc, in use.

We set
	mouseport=ps2intellimouse

in plan9.ini. Three buttons. Wheel is button 2 (middle button,  
execute things in acme) where applicable. I think for the mighty  
mouse the special button-assignment (usually to `expose') features  
need to be disabled in Mac System Preferences.

The wheel also scrolls in Plan 9.

On the macbook, I haven't hit the combo to make the built in trackpad  
do 3 buttons. When we don't want to use an external mouse, we use  
drawterm instead of a parallels terminal.


--
Josh

Re: [9fans] Parallels/Mac Build 5582 almost works

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On 2007-Dec-9, at 20:19 , Joshua Wood wrote:

> We have at least two regular users doing this with external three- 
> button or two+scrollwheel on Mac Parallels 5582.
> We set
> 	mouseport=ps2intellimouse
> in plan9.ini. Three buttons.

Works like a charm!