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Archive: Virtualization

May 11, 2008

A VAX in your Linux box

Like many, my first introduction to the Internet came by way of a VAX/VMS server operated by the local University where I lived. A friend of a friend scenario landed me an account on the system, and after about a week I was hooked. It wasn't long before I signed up for a night class so that I could parlay an official student record into an account of my own (I was in high school at the time).

I was recently wondering about what's happened with OpenVMS. Is it still around? Will it run on normal PC hardware?

It turns out there are still a number of VMS devotees and hobbyists out there, and OpenVMS can still be found running not only on hobbyist legacy systems, but also in modern server environments where security, fault-tolerance, and uptime command a high premium over hardware cost and operating system popularity. There's even a freely available hobbyist license for OpenVMS, and you can get the installer media shipped your way for $30.

But what do you run it on if you don't have a VAX or Alpha in your basement? An emulator, of course! The SIMH emulator, created by the Computer History Simulation Project, is capable of emulating a DEC VAX and will run on a Linux, Windows or OS X host machine.

The most difficult thing, from what I've read, is that you need to jump through a number of hoops to get the OpenVMS license and media and the license needs to be renewed yearly. Phillip Wherry wrote a very extensive howto in 2004 that walks you through obtaining the media, building and configuring the SIMH emulator in Linux, and installing OpenVMS on your virtual VAX. If you want to run OpenVMS on Windows or OS X, there are pre-compiled SIMH binaries available for both platforms. The installation process should be the same for whichever host system you use.

Keep in mind that Phillip's howto was written in 2004, and I haven't gotten my OpenVMS hobbyist license yet, so I don't know for sure if there are any gotchas in there. The DECUS user group still seems to be alive and the company that ships the OpenVMS media is still taking orders, which is a pretty good sign. If any readers out there are currently running this setup, please give us an update in the comments. I'm excited to see some of my old DCL scripts running again, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good news here.

Running VAX/VMS Under Linux Using SIMH
SIMH VAX Emulator (Linux and Windows)
SIMH binaries for OS X
Encompass - DECUS User Group (Sign up for membership which is required for the license and media
Order Form For OpenVMS Hobbyist CD Media

March 19, 2008

From Nand to Tetris in 12 Steps

Shimon Schocken gave a really interesting Google Tech Talk titled From Nand to Tetris in 12 Steps. In the video, he describes a course where students design a complete virtualized computer system from scratch, building from the humble nand gate, to a functional cpu and memory architecture, to compiler software and an operating system, all culminating in a simple game that runs on the virtual hardware.

The hardware projects are done in a simple hardware description language and a hardware simulator supplied by us. The software projects (assembler, VM, and a compiler for a simple object-based language) can be done in any language, using the APIs and test programs supplied by us. We also build a mini-OS. The result is a GameBoy-like computer, simulated on the student's PC. We start the course (and this talk) by demonstrating some video games running on this computer, e.g. Tetris and Pong.

Building a working computer from Nand gates alone is a thrilling intellectual exercise. It demonstrates the supreme power of recursive ascent, and teaches the students that building computer systems is -- more than anything else -- a triumph of human reasoning.

It looks like most of the course materials are available online. The necessary hardware emulator and simulator software is open source and available from Shimon's website.

CS101 Digital Systems Construction
Video - Building a Modern Computer from First Principles [via Slash7]

March 11, 2008

N64 emulation: better than the real thing

Racketboy has a great article showing off some of the capabilities of the modern N64 emulator. If your machine is fast enough, most of the available emulators will really give you a noticeable resolution boost and better looking anti-aliased models. Using the Rice Video plugin with the Project64 emulator, you can even swap out the textures for some games with user-created texture packs.

I still use the real hardware (is the N64 considered "retro" now?), so before seeing this, I hadn't even considered emulation for this platform. That all changed when I saw the Mario64 mod shown above. The selection of available emulators is impressive, and there are open source emulators available for just about every platform. I'm currently playing a game under Mupen64 on my iMac and it's pretty flawless. My only wish is that all computers came, by default, with a nice joystick like they did back in the 80s.

Enhance N64 Graphics With Emulation Plugins & Texture Packs - Link
Project64 Emulator - Link
Rice Video Plugin - Link
Mupen64 Emulator (cross-platform, open source) - Link

March 7, 2008

Run Linux apps in Windows with andLinux

andLinux is a Ubuntu distribution that used the coLinux kernel, a Windows port of the Linux kernel which allows andLinux to run natively inside Windows without any virtualization software. After downloading, you basically just run the install Wizard. When your machine reboots, an extra taskbar icon will be waiting for you to launch and install pretty much any standard Linux application.

The coLinux kernel can be launched as a service and it runs in the background with a dedicated amount of RAM allotted to it. During the install, you create a folder to house the andLinux Ubuntu installation's root directory. If you need to access the full C drive from Linux applications, it's just a quick entry in the /etc/fstab.

When you've got everything running, the end result is really seamless. The Linux applications each run in a standard window, just like your Windows apps. There's no switching between operating system windows. Xterm, Konquerer, Amarok, whatever—It basically just works.

The installation is pretty simple, and there's also a nice tutorial at Tinkernut that runs you through the installer and shows you how to use Synaptec to easily install other Linux applications. If you're primarily a Windows user, but you miss all the great open source apps and command line tools that are available in Linux, this is worth the 700MB download.

andLinux - Link
Using andLinux (video) - Link

February 12, 2008

Haiku running in QEMU

The death of BeOS was an incredible shame. I sometimes wonder what modern operating systems, developer interfaces, and hardware hacking tools (remember the geek port?) would be commonplace today if this weird tangent in computing history had really taken off. An Ars Technica article about the open source BeOS "Haiku" project caught my eye today, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that BeOS development is still alive and kicking.

I've only been playing with it for a few minutes, but it's up and running nicely in the Q virtual machine (QEMU port for OS X). There are nightly disk image builds available for download, and QEMU will boot directly from any of the RAW image downloads. So far everything seems to work reliably.

One thing that isn't completely functional, however, is the drive setup utility. This is a drag, since there's only a few free MB available on the downloaded disk image. Unless you go through the trouble of preparing a BeOS boot volume from within a separate Linux virtual machine, you won't be able to install much of anything. Can any Be hackers comment on a command line method for formatting and preparing a boot image?

Haiku poetically resurrects BeOS - Link
Haiku Operating System - Link

October 8, 2007

Running Puppy Linux inside OS X

Sometimes it's nice to have a secure and familiar OS that you can use from any machine. Puppy Linux is just that: a really lightweight, CD-based Linux distribution, designed for maximum portability. If you're using a PC, you simply boot and run Puppy Linux from a CD, storing your settings and changes to a file on your hard disk or flash drive. What's awesome is that it's so compact, you can fit an emulator, the CD ISO, and the save state files all on a flash disk or SD Card, making it one tiny little OS package that you can carry in your pocket.

Using Q, the OS X port of the QEMU virtual machine, you can create a small footprint, virtual Puppy Linux box that will run under OS X and fit on a flash drive. In addition to its portability, this is one of the easiest ways to get Linux running on your mac.

You could have a little portable Linux box running on your Mac in a half hour. So let's get started.

Read full story

June 12, 2007

Surf privately and anonymously with JanusVM

JanusVM is an open source VMware image that combines Ubuntu, Tor, dns-proxy-tor, Squid, Privoxy, and openvpn all into a convenient little package. Just load up the appliance in VMware and make a VPN connection to the virtual machine's IP. Once you've connected, all of your traffic (including DNS) will be localy encrypted and anonymized over Tor. This is incredibly useful for you road warriors and coffee shop surfers who don't trust the security of a public wifi network.

For windows machines, setup is incredibly easy. The JanusVM server has a network share with a .bat file on it that will automatically configure your VPN for you. Linux users have to set up the VPN connection manually but it's a fairly simple process. I've been trying to get this to work under the new VMware OS X client, but for some reason the network completely conks out as soon as I activate the VPN. If you get this working, let me know. I'll keep monkeying with it myself and let you know what I come up with.

JanusVM network security appliance for VMware - [via] Link

June 7, 2007

VMware Fusion beta 4 for OS X

A new beta release of the VMware client for OS X was released today. With it, you can run other operation systems like Linux or Windows in the VMware virtual machine without having to leave OS X.

It provides pretty much the same functionality as Parallels, except you can download the beta for free. Also, this release contains a cool feature they call "Unity", which allows Windows apps to leave the container window and get friendly with your OS X desktop (video above).

VMware Fusion Beta - Link

March 27, 2007

Building an Ubuntu Server for VMware

Ubuntu's server distribution, with its tiny memory footprint, makes a really decent base setup for a VMware server machine. Using X11, you can even run the console on the server and have it remotely displayed to a Mac desktop (since there isn't a native Mac console available).

Here's a decent walkthrough that will quickly take you start to finish through installing the required software on a fresh Ubuntu box, configuring VMware, and administering it from your Mac. Have fun!

The Perfect VMWare server setup (Multi User and Multi Environment...FAST) -Link.

February 19, 2007

Virtual PC 2007 Released; Why Won't It Use My WiFi Card?

Caution - Ubuntu Edgy Eft.png

Microsoft just released Virtual PC 2007, which brings full support for Windows Vista as a guest and host operating system. If you have a wired and wireless connection in your computer, you might find that Virtual PC has ignored the wireless card during setup, but complains loudly about not being able to use that connection when you run a virtual machine.

To solve this problem, get to the network connection properties. In Vista, you can right-click on the network icon in the notification area, select Network and Sharing Center, then select Manage Network Connections. In the window that appears, find your wireless network connection, right-click on it, then choose properties. Check the box labeled Virtual Machine Network Services, and click OK: