OS X for SSE (qemu), using a lightweight linux distro Options

[Dragon]

OS X for SSE Project

Hi,

This thread has been created for the purpose of exchanging information regarding OS X being emulated on SSE processors by using a lightweight linux distribution as a host, and the open-source application qemu to emulate the SSE2 instructions. The linux distribution will serve as a host for qemu and will be loaded into ram for maximum speed. I have chosen Featherlinux as the current host distro because it is only 122mb in size, can fit into a small amount of ram, and has qemu pre-installed.

So far there are 3 people working on this project. Ai Haibara, Embio, and myself. Anyone else feel free to contribute.

Project Information

Aim: To get OS X emulated at the most usable speed possible, and create a DVD installer.
Method: The Featherlinux CD will be altered to house a 10.4.8 installation dvd, the necessary scripts required to create the files for qemu (harddisk image) and scripts to launch the virtual harddrive or native harddrive in full screen mode at startup.
Requirements: SSE PC with more than 512mb of ram, a decent graphics card, and a dvd-rom drive.

Our first goal is to find out what limitations we have other than ram and graphics. Embio and I are waiting for some more RAM before we can get to testing again, but if anybody has a PC that meets the requirements in the meantime feel free to try it and post your successes/failures.

My P3 is a custom built PC with a 'coppermine' processor, 256mb RAM and a radeon 9250 128mb (PCI) graphics card.

You CANNOT test this method in vmware because the video support that vmware provides does not work with qemu.
When booting from OS X in qemu, use the follow flags in the boot prompt :

platform=X86PC "Graphics Mode"="800x600x16" -v

If you need a demonstration of how to use qemu/featherlinux, download the attached file.
To run Featherlinux in ram, enter "knoppix toram" in boot options when the cd loads.

References/Thing of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qemu - Qemu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_Linux - Featherlinux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine - KVM
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/kqemu-doc.html - Qemu Accelerator



Good luck,
Dragon

[Dragon]

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?cat=...knoppixqemu.rar

[Colonel]

Awesome!

[joe75]

OS X for SSE Project
Requirements: SSE PC with more than 512mb of ram, a decent graphics card, and a dvd-rom drive.

Just wanted to point out lots of SSE boards top out at 512 of ram, have you guys even tried with 256?
I hope you the best of luck, maybe I could pull out some old parts if you get this going. I've read of a couple of gurus that have been able to run on SSE for a while

[Dragon]

On the apple website, it says that you must have "At least 256MB of physical RAM" to run tiger. Seeing as Featherlinux is going to be taking up a small portion of the ram, we are going to need more than 256mb. I have tried with 256mb and I think that is what is causing OS X to crash so I think the minimum amount of ram that we need to get OS X running is 384mb. That's only a 256mb + 128mb.

I've read of a couple of gurus that have been able to run on SSE for a while

What do you mean? Did they get it running natively or using qemu?

Dragon

[Embio]

I still say 512MB is going to be a minimum, I'm going to get a couple of 256 sticks for this one. Do we know what Qemu takes up?

[U.C.]

My old Athlon XP 2100+ had only SSE, and had a GB of RAM. I got a Celeron-D 2.26 GHz and i find it equivalent in speed. But sadly my Athlon is all burnt up, so oh well, so much for that. On the other hand, my new Celeron does SSE3 so thats awesome.

This post has been edited by Unstable Connection: Jan 16 2007, 02:52 PM

[joe75]

What do you mean? Did they get it running natively or using qemu?

I'm not sure and I cant seem to find the posts. I think it would be natively because I believe I read it while looking through kernel development crap. I think it had something to do with compiling the kernel but I'm not positive what was done.

[OoOoOoO]

you will have no luck guys

kvm need Intel VT or AMD SVM technology

no intel VT on pentium3 procs, and no AMD SVM on AthlonXP

[Dragon]

I'm not sure and I cant seem to find the posts. I think it would be natively because I believe I read it while looking through kernel development crap. I think it had something to do with compiling the kernel but I'm not positive what was done.

Yeah, Semthex told me that the current kernel runs on SSE in single user mode, it's just the extra non-open source stuff like the finder and dock which still need SSE2. Let's get back to work on getting OS X running in qemu though .

[Dragon]

you will have no luck guys

kvm need Intel VT or AMD SVM technology

no intel VT on pentium3 procs, and no AMD SVM on AthlonXP

I just posted that there as an item of interest. We are probably using qemu.

[Embio]

I will most likely be picking up some RAM this weekend. On a side note, why is 100mhz SD-RAM still so expensive? 1GB in sticks of 256MB costs the same as the 1GB 667 SO-DIMM I got for my Macbook, its ridiculous.

[Soündless]

i am going to try this on my old p3 after i get it back from grandma

[mac-mini]

i have a P3 im willing to test on. i can also provide OS X 10.0 10.2 and 10.3 if needed
the p3 has 512MB RDRAM with an ati radeon 9250 PC and CD burner.

This post has been edited by mac mini: Jan 18 2007, 02:50 AM

[Dragon]

FeatherLinux - 122mb
http://featherlinux.berlios.de/download.htm

Install Featherlinux to HDD.
Use USB media/network connection to transfer OS X iso to linux partition.
Boot Featherlinux, open terminal ..
create hdd image, boot OSX.

tell us what happens

[Embio]

how do we make a hard drive installed FeatherLinux boot into RAM?

[Dragon]

hmm... never thought of that
i can't remember if it loaded boot options when booting from the hdd.
it copies the operating system files from the cd into RAM so i'd assume it would do the same with a hdd install..

anyways, i'll be checking tomorrow. gotta get some sleep

cya

[Soündless]

would it be possible to make a complete installer, qemu menu, feather linux and osx?

This post has been edited by Soundless: Jan 18 2007, 03:59 PM

[Embio]

first things first, FeatherLinux needs to have web browsers, word processors etc. stripped out.

[Dragon]

I have been reading about Knoppix remastering...
Featherlinux is just a remastered version of knoppix, i.e packages removed.
So I say we remaster our own version of knoppix, so we can choose what we want in it and what we don't.

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_Remastering_Howto
http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/20...hout_remas.html
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...pix+remastering
http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=575

knoppix will load into RAM also, if small enough.