E-Maculation

With version .6 qemu is getting closer to booting osx, it gets further failing at the cdrom hardware check.

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ossupport.html

It's good to hear that there's progress, but that still puts it a long way behind PPC.

What makes you think QEMU is "a long way behind PPC"? I can't find a valid argument to confirm this hypothesis.

gb wrote:What makes you think QEMU is "a long way behind PPC"? I can't find a valid argument to confirm this hypothesis.

Errr...how about the fact that PPC can boot OSX and that QEMU can't?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that an operating system needed to fully boot to be useful....

Be careful with your acronyms.

PPC actually refers to PowerPC, the architecture. It does not officially refer to PearPC, the program.

That said, I've been playing with QEMU quite a bit lately, and with version .6 they have make incredble progress over previous versions (at least, in terms of PPC). In the past, QEMU had only been able to simulate a PREP system, and only boot directly from a mac linux kernel. Now it has complete system virtualization, allowing it to boot from other things. I've gotten it to boot up the installation of Mandrake 9.1 PPC, and even got it to start X when booting from a knoppix ppc cd (through the direct framebuffer driver).

No, it can't yet boot OSX, but it does get very close. The biggest difference between PearPC and QEMU is that PearPC can simulate only a powerpc cpu. QEMU can already simulate complete x86 and powerpc systems, and is currently testing ARM and SPARC CPU emulation. It already is the jack-of-all trades in terms of system emulation, and I have no doubt it will be able to boot OSX in a future release.

So to recap, it's not accurate, and not at all intelligent to say it's "way behind PPC." For one, it's right on track to emulate a PPC system, and while it can't boot OSX yet, it's under heavy development, and most likely will very soon. Second, you can't compare it to PearPC, as PearPC has one focus- PPC, while QEMU has many- PPC, x86, SPARC, ARM. With development split into those four groups, it's amazing it's come as far as it has.

Qemu is also fast..

Qemu emulates x86 faster..but how about PPC...Well , if it can emulate a fast PPC..Many people will use Qemu and people will not use PearPC....Well , of course PearPC can emulate Network , Native CD-ROM Drive.....Run MacOS 7/8.1 using a 68K emulator inside OSX







*PPC = PowerPC

prasys wrote:Qemu emulates x86 faster..but how about PPC...Well , if it can emulate a fast PPC..Many people will use Qemu and people will not use PearPC....Well , of course PearPC can emulate Network , Native CD-ROM Drive.....Run MacOS 7/8.1 using a 68K emulator inside OSX







*PPC = PowerPC

Yes but PearPC cant run Mac os 8.5 - 9.0 Well maybe not qemu either. I dont see it happening for either emulation. I think poor sheepshaver the first powerpc emulator for the x86 processor (released) well always serve one crowd while pearpc and qemu will serve another crowd. Personally I would like to see softpear work out. Softpear being a application enviroment with ppc emulator so running osx apps on linux/windows would be just like running apps with wine on linux. Which I would like in the long run. I dont want to run macosx just to use one or two applications. When there is a possible alternative that will allow them to run them inside windows or linux.

prasys wrote:Qemu emulates x86 faster..but how about PPC...

I believe Qemu has faster MMU emulation, with limitations. The PearPC Wiki mentions the Qemu MMU as a possibility.

I was just playing with QEMU a bit more, and I dug up an OSX emergency boot disc. QEMU starts to boot up with it, I see the apple logo come up, and it loads all the drivers and such. It crashes right before Darwin starts to load up, with a message like this:


Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 6.6:
Thu May 1 21:48:54 PDT 2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.34.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

No debugger configure- dumping debug information
MSR=00001030
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x0008581C 0x00085DE0 0x000287B4 0x0023CEDC 0x0021F1E8 0x0021FB38 0x00220194 0x00210610 0x002105D4
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x02411500)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 6.6:
Thu May 1 21:48:54 PDT 2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.34.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC


panic: We are hanging here...



Any programmers out there know where the crash occured?

Edit: Does the same thing with a regular OSX CD, minus the loading drivers part. The kernel panic is the same though.

first you guys stop fighting. ppc and qemu are good projects that i would like to see evolving to be 100% compatible with the platforms they are emulating and with each other.
second, what happens when you try to boot an already-installed mac os x?

rccola70 wrote:Qemu is also fast..

Qemu is reasonably fast (Nowhere near the 1/4 speed quoted on either of the machines I tried it on, 1 linux based and 1 XP machine) but PearPC will probably beat it speed wise (It's goal is OSX on X86 where as qemu is portability and whole system emulation).

We should count ourselves lucky a year+ ago there was no decent powerpc emulator, now there's 3.

desertboy wrote:We should count ourselves lucky a year+ ago there was no decent powerpc emulator, now there's 3.

i think so too.