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Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 8:07 am
by mabam
I'll probably get an iMac G5 from someone in a while and I'm looking for a way to run OS 9 with native networking, so not in Classic mode in Tiger.

I read QEMU can be installed using tigerbrew (viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9625). But according to https://github.com/mistydemeo/tigerbrew ... la/qemu.rb QEMU 2.2.1 is the last version to work on pre-10.6 OS X. While OS 9 support was in the making, QEMU was already in version 2.3.0 (see viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7047&start=100#p50722), so QEMU is not an option.

Do I need to emulate using SheepShaver, or is there some way to actually virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host running Leopard?

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 2:46 pm
by 24bit
A iMac G5 may be nice to have for some tasks, but booting OS9 is impossible.
Even worse, I don´t think there ever was a SheepShaver build for PPC.
That brings you down to Tiger and Classic, I´m afraid.
Not that bad, but clearly not matching your wishes. :(

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:19 pm
by Cat_7
Sheepshaver is built for 3 architectures, but is buggy and resource-hungry on PPC ;-). I remember a "harmless" crash on every start.

Older builds may work better.

Best,
Cat_7

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:42 pm
by mabam
Thanks for the tip!

I thought that thing further in the meantime. It seems to be possible to install Ubuntu 14 on a G5. That might enable me to install/compile a version of Qemu that is capable of running OS 9, and configure the G5 for dual boot with Ubuntu or OS X.

Does that sound realistic?

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 5:55 pm
by Cat_7
It does.

I have G4 mac mini 1.5 ghz running linux and compiled a kernel to include kvm. That machine thus runs accelerated qemu with OS 9.2. You might do the same with your G5. But it is still dreadfully slow.

I haven't boot my G5 in a long time to see performance, but if the performance of my dual intel 3.0 ghz Mac Pro with SSD is anything to go by, it will be slow.

Best,
Cat_7

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:15 pm
by mabam
There shouldn't be many reasons to boot OS 9 natively rather than in Classic mode. Native OS 9 networking is one of them. For other means, if I install Tiger, I can run stuff in Classic mode.

But are you saying KVM is not included in the standard kernel ('cause from what you write I should really have that in the kernel)? Or does it depend on the distribution? Would you recommend a different one than Ubuntu?

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:31 pm
by Ronald P. Regensburg
Exactly why is "native OS9 networking" important to you?

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:47 pm
by mabam
Playing around with AFP2. :-)
And Qemu is more stable on that than SheepShaver.

But also, it will feel a little more like a replacement for my G3 iMac which was able to run OS 9 natively.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 8:26 pm
by Cat_7
mabam wrote:There shouldn't be many reasons to boot OS 9 natively rather than in Classic mode. Native OS 9 networking is one of them. For other means, if I install Tiger, I can run stuff in Classic mode.

But are you saying KVM is not included in the standard kernel ('cause from what you write I should really have that in the kernel)? Or does it depend on the distribution? Would you recommend a different one than Ubuntu?
Not in the kernel from Debian. I don't know about others.

Best,
Cat_7

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:47 pm
by airat78
If your mac running OS X Panther, you can use the fork of virtual machine for Linux - Mac-on-Mac. Fast, stable and easy to use VM, which can run Mac OS 9 to 9.2.2 and OS X 10.1 - 10.3.9, but without sound and network.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:07 pm
by mabam
I got the G5 yesterday. But I haven't got the install DVDs of the software (including system software) yet as they are buried somewhere in a box. I'll have to wait for that before I delete the current installation and partition the HD.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:18 pm
by Ronald P. Regensburg
I used MOM at the time. Worked nicely. Development stopped abruptly when Apple decided to switch to Intel.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 8:58 pm
by adespoton
I've successfully used MoM on a PPC host. I've also used it unsuccessfully inside QEMU, but that was a while ago; it may work now (although there's no reason to do so).

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 9:21 pm
by mabam
It's running 10.5, so MoM doesn't work.

I could actually use Time Machine to backup the whole system on an external HDD, partition the internal one and restore the backup onto one of the partitions. Then install Linux with Qemu onto a second partition in order to make 9.2.2 run with networking.

I might consider installing 10.3 (which I have retail CDs for) onto a third partition to try MoM. But as I need networking this isn't actually the solution I am looking for.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:46 am
by mabam
Ronald P. Regensburg wrote:I used MOM at the time. Worked nicely.
adespoton wrote:I've successfully used MoM on a PPC host.
Was that on G5 Macs? As OS 9 doesn't run natively on a G5 and MoM doesn't emulate anything, I wonder whether it will run OS 9.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:02 pm
by Ronald P. Regensburg
For me it was on a G4 with MacOSX 10.3 (Panther). I vaguely remember attempts to make it run in 10.4 (Tiger), but as soon as Apple had announced that Intel was the future, any further development stopped.

Re: Virtualise OS 9 on a PPC host

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 3:30 am
by adespoton
Mine was on a G4 iMac. I never tried it on my G5 under 10.3; I seem to recall I had 10.4 on out of the box and so MoM never worked.