Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/foo

• Created: Date(2006-03-08T15:48:48Z) by PaulSladen

• Contributors: PaulSladen, JohnMoser

• Packages affected: casper

Summary

This spec describes adding Qemu to the LiveCD to boot under Win32.

Rationale

Users may find themselves unwilling to try a LiveCD or make the switch to Ubuntu; a virtualized LiveCD would give users a way to use Ubuntu easily until they feel comfortable enough to commit.

Use cases

There are several.

• Alice worries that a LiveCD may destroy her existing OS; she runs it inside a virtualized Qemu session instead.
• Bob wants to try Ubuntu without rebooting and closing all his running programs; he uses Ubuntu within a virtualized Qemu session.
• Eve uses Ubuntu within a Qemu virtualized session with her documents in a Samba share; she becomes comfortable enough to make the switch on her next computer upgrade.

Scope

The LiveCD should offer to run inside Qemu under Win32.

Design

Use Qvm86 and Qemu.

Implementation

make -fwin32/Makefile.gcc zlib1.dll
sudo cp -a zlib.h zconf.h /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include
sudo cp -a libzdll.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/libz.a
paul@katu:~/src/upload/qemu-win32/qemu-0.8.0$ cp -a ../zlib-1.2.3/upstream/tarballs/zlib-1.2.3/zlib1.dll .
paul@katu:~/src/upload/qemu-win32/qemu-0.8.0$ wine ./qemu-img.exe
qemu-img version 0.8.0, Copyright (c) 2004-2005 Fabrice Bellard
usage: qemu-img command [command options]

$ cp -a ../../sdl-1.2.9-win32/bin/SDL.dll .
paul@katu:~/src/upload/qemu-win32/qemu-0.8.0$ wine ./i386-softmmu/qemu.exe  | head
QEMU PC emulator version 0.8.0, Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Fabrice Bellard
usage: qemu [options] [disk_image]

Hzzzzah!

Current Status:

• Boots under Wine under X, but with corrupt video
• Boots under Windows, but with no mouse (seemed to be fixed with a reboot...)

C:\Documents and Settings\sladen\Desktop\qemu-win32_0.8.0-0loadaddr>qemu -m 180
-L . -kernel d:\install\vmlinuz -initrd ..\initramfs.gz -hdd d:\casper\filesyste
m.squashfs -hda ..\20040602150630937_YP780_yepp_studio_driver.zip -append "boot=
casper quiet splash"

• There is no /dev/zero on Windows, so a random file is used instead; EVMS then complains that there isn't a partition table on it and asks interactive questions before dumping you at a command prompt.

• usplash times out on pre-init

More links:

• http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~qemu-win/

• Qvm86 appears to be the windows equivalent of Kqemu (the binary accelarator module).

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

• Qemu needs GCC 3.3 to build reliably
• SDL 1.2
• Zlib

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html#TOC56

http://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL-devel-1.2.9-mingw32.tar.gz

sudo apt-get install mingw32-binutils mingw32 mingw32-runtime

cp -al qemu-0.8.0/ qemu-0.8.0-win32

export PATH=/home/paul/src/upload/sdl-1.2.9-win32/bin/:$PATH
./configure --enable-mingw32 --cross-prefix=i586-mingw32msvc-

ERROR: "i586-mingw32msvcgcc" looks like gcc 4.x
QEMU is known to have problems when compiled with gcc 4.x
It is recommended that you use gcc 3.x to build QEMU
To use this compiler anyway, configure with --disable-gcc-check

make install

*lots of errors*

BoF agenda and discussion

* This spec needs attention if it's going to go anywhere. --JohnMoser

CategorySpec