Author Topic: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7  (Read 20395 times)

Dave Yeo

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Re: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7
« Reply #30 on: December 24, 2021, 06:33:28 am »
My non-expert understanding,
Jailbird is basically right about why they dropped 16 bit support along with simplifying things a lot.
The compiler is the simple part, along with the linker (wlink fork is 64 bit), the assembly in the kernel is the hard part, it would need rewriting, which even IBM didn't touch.
Similar with most device drivers. Even the 32 bit will make assumptions about the memory being 32 bit. Windows had the same problem.
As Andreas said, there are device drivers, various parts of the main API and actually cmd.exe along with most of the traditional command line programs. They can be replaced.
Then everything would need rebuilding to be 64 bit. Likely even with source there would be hurdles, 32 bit assumptions. You could have a set of 32 bit libraries and such and run as 32 on 64 bit (forget the proper name).
We're missing source and a few skilled kernel people to even start, besides IBM might not allow it.

PAE seems a more possible course, but the kernel needs to support it, not simple. The low/high shared memory model we have might complicate things as well. Even when working, it seems there'd have to be some shared memory taking up that 4GB address space. Still even to give programs separate 2GB address pools would help.

It's manpower, IBM took years to port OS/2 to PowerPC (32bit), with lots of money and manpower. And they had the source and access to some of the people who wrote it.

jailbird

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Re: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7
« Reply #31 on: December 30, 2021, 11:10:16 pm »
It's manpower, IBM took years to port OS/2 to PowerPC (32bit), with lots of money and manpower. And they had the source and access to some of the people who wrote it.

It’s really sad that all of that PPC work never made it to the x86 version. I’m assuming IBM couldn’t give the changes to AN in source form, as MS still co-owns the source?

Dave Yeo

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Re: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7
« Reply #32 on: December 30, 2021, 11:28:42 pm »
It's manpower, IBM took years to port OS/2 to PowerPC (32bit), with lots of money and manpower. And they had the source and access to some of the people who wrote it.

It’s really sad that all of that PPC work never made it to the x86 version. I’m assuming IBM couldn’t give the changes to AN in source form, as MS still co-owns the source?

Some of it did, the Gradd drivers for example came from the PPC version.
As for the source, rumour has it that it was lost. AN doesn't even have the x86 kernel sources, not sure why but perhaps they're also lost.
It would have been nice if IBM had released the PPC source, though how much MS owned is hard to say, might be the problem with the x86 source as well.

jailbird

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Re: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7
« Reply #33 on: December 31, 2021, 09:15:27 pm »
It's manpower, IBM took years to port OS/2 to PowerPC (32bit), with lots of money and manpower. And they had the source and access to some of the people who wrote it.

It’s really sad that all of that PPC work never made it to the x86 version. I’m assuming IBM couldn’t give the changes to AN in source form, as MS still co-owns the source?

Maybe it'll eventually be like the Inktomi/Yahoo! Traffic Server code and somebody will eventually find it sitting on a shelf somewhere...
« Last Edit: January 01, 2022, 11:38:20 pm by jailbird »

Doug Clark

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Re: VirtualBox and ArcaOS 5.0.7
« Reply #34 on: January 01, 2022, 09:36:27 pm »
On my machine the guest OS in vbox, running on an AOS host machine with dual-head / SNAP can set the screen size equal to the resolution of the AOS host, i.e. 3820 / 1080.  However that screen size is not available on the guest unless the session is started with vboxsdl.  If I start the guest session from  virtualbox.exe the full resolution of the host screen is not available in the guest.

At least that is the case with a Windows NT guest.  Haven't tried with other guest OSs

The other advantage of using vboxsdl is the session usually starts immediately.  If I use virtualBox.exe I usually have to wait 15 seconds after virtualBox.exe comes up before I can start a guest.

The downside is you can't just close the guest session window in order to save the session; you  need to run vboxmanage.exe  to do that.  But that is a minor issue to me.

The command file I use to start my WinNT guest machine is
vboxsdl --startvm dc86c149-cf14-42fb-8833-d81172b92f89

The command file I use  to suspend my WinNT guest session is
vboxmanage controlvm dc86c149-cf14-42fb-8833-d81172b92f89 savestate

The weird number  is the ID of the guest machine.  You can alternately use the title of the guest machine