Re: Linuxemu and Slackware 11.0, preliminary report

[steve <steve@quintile.net>]

i did quite a bit of work on linuxemu last year but never got it to a stage where i was happy to generally release it. for me, working with debian, the improved linuxemu will now work
happily with the current debian distribution; i have not tried slackware.

the most controversial change was in the handling of special files, which i flag using
a combination of plan9's append and exclusive bits, rather than cinap's choice of using
an escaped "special" filename.

the change makes open, stat, and wstat cheaper as the file you a moifying is easily found,
however it does mean you have to use mkfs/extfs of linux'tar to move files about, plan9's tar
will not do as it does not understand these extra mode flags.

there are many other changes including a symlink cache, and wider linux systemcall coverage.

i use this daily at work for svn and ghostscript, and opera but i haven't tried much else,
what i have tried does work.

you are welcome to try mycode which is in /n/sources/contrib/linuxemu.tgz, though
i cannot help much at the moment as i am on holiday.

-steve

On 2 Apr 2012, at 02:53 PM, Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Had a little play with slackwaree 11.0 in Linuxemu. It mostly works,
> the buggest problem may be bash 3.0 which can't export environment
> variables. Note the underlying 9front system hasn't been upgraded since
> December.
> 
> pkgtools
>   * installpkg appears to run correctly but it's noticeable some
>     work is not done; e.g. there is no gcc symlink and firefox's
>     launcher script languishes in /usr/lib/firefox-foo. Probably
>     related to bash's env var issues.
>   * tar-13.1 (included) fails to unpack files. Installpkg
>     complains if /bin/tar-13.1 is not present, but functions
>     better without than with.
> 
> bash (3.0)
>   * Prompts, executes commands, for loops, wildcard expansion,
>     and history (in xterm) correctly.
>   * Fails to export environment variables.
>   * May have some other problem with variables;
>     configure fails to recognize it as a posix shell based on a
>     test with a lot of variables.
>   * ddoouubblleess every character entered at the prompt in rio
>     and acme windows. This is purely cosmetic. Does not happen in
>     xterm.
> 
> ash
>   * Prompts, executes commands, and history (in xterm) correctly.
>   * ddoouubblleess every character entered at the prompt in rio
>     and acme windows. This is purely cosmetic. Does not happen in
>     xterm.
> 
> xterm
>   * Displays and scrolls command-line data correctly.
>   * Dialog appears to run correctly within it. (--yesno tested)
>   * Less does not.
>   * Takes a second to exit.
> 
> WindowMaker and WPrefs.app
>   * WM Functions as correctly as it ever did.
>   * WPrefs works.
> 
> Firefox (1.5)
>   * Generally functions as expected but cannot load some pages
>     which Mothra can, and can't load any of the pages I really
>     want which don't work in Mothra anyway. ;)
> 
> xz
>   * could not compile; failed to configure (see bash).
> 
> opera (11.62)
>   * outputs 1 line to stderr: Killed. Not really unexpected with
>     such an old libc.
> 
> opera (9.52, gcc-2.95, static)
>   * Works correctly! Or at least, it works better than that old
>     Firefox.
> 
> To do:
>   * Test environment variables in ash. If pass, attempt to use ash
>     as /bin/sh and retry package installation and configure
>     scripts. Also retry Opera 11.
>   * See if some change to /etc/inputrc could fix the doubling.