Bochs 2.0 Released 284
Jas Sandys-Lumsdaine writes "Bochs 2.0 has just been released - project lead Bryce Denney writes: "It's been a busy 6 months since our previous release! Bochs is now about twice as fast as version 1.4.1. Also, we can now emulate MMX instructions, SSE/SSE2, and even AMD x86-64 instructions if you turn on the appropriate configure options. The emulation improvements have paid off; several people have been able to install Windows XP recently." Excellent stuff."
Would it have been so hard to say... (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds cool, but useful? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds cool, but useful? (Score:2)
Your view is too shallow. Think about more than just the "software users".
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason? As usual, the article submission assumes basic telepathy on the part of the reader, and doesn't explain what Bochs is (although it gives a few hints - more than we usually get).
So you go to the page, think "what is Bochs?", and if you have comments ordered by score, then bingo - the first message is telling you what Bochs is, because the submission didn't. Who cares if it's lifted - it's just information that people needed.
This is a good application of moderation, imho - if you're carefully writing thoughtful posts just so you can score some karma, then I think you may have missed the point of moderation (and karma).
It's kind of like buying a raffle ticket from a charity because you think you'll probably win. It's a nice side effect, but it's not the point of the exercise.
Tim
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... (Score:2)
Oh, and another thing, I doubt the poster was "malicious" (New crime? Posting with malicious intent?). I would imagine they posted AC because otherwise every other Slashdotter would have broken out the "Karma Whore" cry.
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... (Score:2)
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... (Score:2)
Anything would be faster... (Score:3, Informative)
(My system isn't a super one, but 800mhz/512megs of RAM should be enough to play DOS games)...
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
In fact a company that I will possibly be working for has managed to do this but get the code to run faster than it runs natively! It has to be seen to be believed. (If you are wondering how it can run faster, think of the whole code-morphing thing)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
Also, I believe that BOCHS is a smarter idea overall, because it deals with the better documented x86 architecture, rather than trying to emulate a bunch of byzantine APIs like WINE or worse yet reserved memory mappings of DOS. but that's just my nontechnical opinion.
Upgrade to 2.0 then tell us (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you should upgrade to 2.0 and test it out again. I think your case would be a valuable pice of information.
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
(My system isn't a super one, but 800mhz/512megs of RAM should be enough to play DOS games)...
For now at least, the best way to enjoy those classics is to get hold of a 486/low end Pentium, bung in a soundcard and CD-ROM drive and install MS-DOS 6.22 (or failing that, Win98 will do for most games). I've been playing Monkey Island 2 all day using this setup, and no, I don't usually spend my saturdays doing that
I can still remeember how to complete Part One and get LeChuck resurrected, wahey!
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
Exit to error: Call to interrupt 0xCD this is BAD
But, it's not finished yet... I'll give it a shot later down the road. I'll just stick with doing it the hard way (having a second computer)... *shrug*
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anything would be faster... (Score:2)
According to VMWare's support files [vmware.com], it is compatible with an SB16. (Ok, so compatible != actual card, but if they say to use it...)
Boch vs. VMWare (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Boch vs. VMWare (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Boch vs. VMWare (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Boch vs. VMWare (Score:4, Informative)
Precisely.
I've used all three (Bochs, WINE, VMWare) and each are designed for different purposes.
Bochs is quite slow for normal application usage, but it is absolutely ideal for low level OS development work. Compare crashing your real machine hundreds of times while debugging your bootloader and memory management code to having a "virtual" crash in Bochs. Also, Bochs provides stubs for implementing runtime instrumentation, so you can use powerful debugging techniques that remain 100% insulated from the debugee.
If you are primarily concerned with running one or two Windows apps under Linux that you just can't live without, then Wine is for you. Sure, there are still some rough edges, but in many cases, your application will actually run faster under Linux then under Windows. However, parts of Wine are still incomplete, so YMMV. The biggest plus with the Wine approach is that interaction between apps is a tad simpler.
VMWare creates a bit of a middle ground between Wine and Bochs. I've used it for the past two years to keep a copy of Win98 and Win2k on my Linux box. Because being an independent programmer/consultant sometimes requires me to use technologies I don't exactly embrace, the Windows in VMWare option allows me to maintain productivity while not opening myself to network *cough* problems. In addition, I can keep multiple OS's running concurrently so testing and debugging apps is fairly painless. Except for a few operations (installing software, for example) the virtual machine runs almost as fast as if I ran the OS natively. BTW, when Windows inevitably hoses itself, I have it running again in the time it takes to copy a 1G file ;-)
So in summary, if you are doing some hardcore hacking, get yourself Bochs... it will save you many many reboots.
If you want to run MS Office and can live with a few glitches, get yourself Wine.
Looking to simplify cross-OS application debugging, need to have Windows close at hand, doing tech support? Then VMWare is your answer.
Want to run the latest DirectX 9.0, wet your pants LOD game... yet run Linux as well? Get yourself a second machine.
Re:Boch vs. VMWare (Score:2)
As per the BochsFaq Page: [sourceforge.net]
Q: Tell me about peformance when running bochs? Because Bochs emulates every x86 instruction and all the devices in a PC system, it does not reach high emulation speeds. Kevin reported approximately 1.5MIPS using bochs on a 400Mhz PII Linux machine. Users who have an x86 processor and want the highest emulation speeds may want to consider PC virtualization sotware uch as plex86 (free) or vmware (commercial).
Why so slow? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why so slow? (Score:2, Informative)
The webpage hasn't been updated but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The webpage hasn't been updated but... (Score:2)
BeOS MHz (Score:2, Interesting)
I ran BeOS Max 2.1 on it, even though it hangs before running to completion. (As well as regular BeOS, so it's not the known AMD XP / Pentium 4 CPU bug.)
The debugging console reports Bochs running as 13MHz. My machine is 1GHz. Still, it's speedier than older versions.
I am still waiting to be able to run BeOS on it.
What we need now... (Score:5, Funny)
And don't tell me you didn't all think the same thing as soon as you found out what Bochs was.
Re:What we need now... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What we need now... (Score:2)
Re:What we need now... (Score:2)
But what about Virtual PC [connectix.com]?
And don't tell me you didn't all think the same thing as soon as you found out what Bochs was.
Actually, I must admit that I tried to run an OS that has been installed on another (physical) partition.
If you do this enough... (Score:5, Funny)
Like this (Score:2)
Re:What we need now... (Score:2)
31337 there, champ!
Re:What we need now... (Score:4, Funny)
What does it do? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What does it do? (Score:4, Informative)
2.0pre4 (Score:3)
(rant)
To Slashdot Editors: CLICK THE FREAKING LINKS. I'm getting really, really sick of all these false stories. I swear, although it's only a joke right now, the fact that people can't trust Slashdot is becoming a real issue...
Re:2.0pre4 (Score:3, Informative)
I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:3, Interesting)
So many choices, but I really don't have time to try everything out. Mainly I care about compatibility over performance. $250 won't break the bank, but free is better of course. I need to run a few simple apps like UPS shipping software, but also a bunch of specialty stuff where hardware compatilibty might be hard and the apps aren't likely to have been thoroughly tested already (OrCAD, Microchip MPLAB, Xilinx WebPack, stuff like that). I could give a flying sh*t about games, but I suspect that's mostly what people want these for.
Could anyone with experience using several of these emulators shed some light? It'd be really nice if the authors would provide some compatiblity/performance/stability matrices for popular apps, to help us choose.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:3, Informative)
ostiguy
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:2)
And even better, when a colleague needs to do testing, I just copy the virtual disk onto a CD. Much easier than hardware.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:3, Informative)
If, for example, you've got a laptop, and have needs for both Windows and Linux, a perfect virtual machine environment is absolutely desireable. You can take your laptop anywhere, and simultaneously run apps of different varieties.
I've got an iBook. I'd never have considered switching to Linux without MacOnLinux [maconlinux.org]. With proper virtual machine design, and a native processor, there's no crippling speed penalty either. Even if I had $1200 for another iBook. I've got both right here.
Even with desktop machines, if you've spend $1500 on your primary system, WindowsXP on a virtual machine is going to be a hell of a lot faster than a new $250 machine.
Oh. Wait. You said emulation. In that case, I couldn't agree more strongly. I just don't know of any $250 processor emulation packages. VMWare is just a virtual machine, right?
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:2)
Whatever.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:2)
I do! [transmeta.com] ;-)
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:2)
It sure seems nice to have a development environment for kernel's in which you don't have to reboot the whole computer when you make a mistake.
Furthermore, debuging a kernel on real hardware is inherently intrusive. Doing the same on a hardware -emulator- such as Bochs is not.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... (Score:2)
Application-level software users really want virtualization in most cases (Virtual PC is a different story).
Kernel-level developers really -do- want hardware emulation, even if it is slow.
Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone look at the possibility of incorporating such emulation into the Linux kernel? It would be a enormous boost for acceptance of Linux on non-X86 platforms.
Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
You can run x86-16 applications on x86-32 CPUs,
and you can run ELKS (Linux/8086) applications
inside GNU/Linux/x86-32 (Linux/80386).
Plus, x86 is a darn complicated architecture,
think of all the legacy parts.
This is why emulation writers have such a hard
job. Even coders of projects such as Wine or
the BSD Linuxulation (those are no emulation,
but just a transfer layer) have a hard time to
code, because most of the stuff is barely docu-
mented, if at all.
Again a problem is, the hardware basics books were
written in the late 80es or early 90es, and they
aren't available for sale usually any more (I tried
to get a BIOS book from Microsoft Press here in
Germany, but they couldn't even order it from the
USA, and that was about three or four years ago!).
If you actually have interest, I think the projects
(bochs, plex86, wine) have fora and newsgroups,
or at least irc channels (the webpage is a good
start; most free projects sit at irc.freenode.net)
Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux (Score:2)
Dealing with endianness issues when wrapping all possible system calls would be so horrible it's not funny. Too many calls, too much mucking about to see what's *really* endian-sensitive under what conditions, and things like driver IOCTLs that you just plain don't know whether to wrap or not.
OTOH, emulating x86 is a horrid screaming nightmare. The 68k architecture is relatively clean, relatively simple. i686 is, well, *not*. A clean, easy to maintain implementation runs extremely slowly. An implementation based on JIT cross-compiling and re-optimization of code improves to merely "crawling so slowly you want to claw your eyes out", as you have to track *all* possible side effects of all instructions, in an architecture that was definitely not designed to make that easy. If you're a god and write an emulator that not only cross-compiles but that tracks all side effects, finds out which ones don't matter and discards them, speculatively unrolls and optimizes and maybe even skips loops with code that checks for premature exits and state changes (to roll back state to non-unrolled/skipped loops in case of mispredicts), and in all other ways just extracts the salient computations being performed while discarding all busy-waiting and non-computation cruft, then it'll just be "slow".
This would be a really cool series of PhD topics for about a dozen skilled CS grad students. After 10-15 years of work, this might be do-able, and the cross-compiling/optimization technology developed would have many other applications.
In the meantime, recompiling is probably the way to go.
In summary, good, real-time x86 emulation is a "pick one" scenario at the moment.
The Crusoe doesn't count, as they're mapping to hardware specifically designed to emulate x86 machines.
Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It's been released?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Be still my heart! (Score:2, Informative)
So what happened to plex86? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So what happened to plex86? (Score:2)
Kevin Lawton got fired from Madrake (?) a couple years ago, and plex86 has been dead ever since.
It still exists here [nongnu.org]
Why to use Bochs... (Score:3, Insightful)
So why would you want to use it?
Personally, I use it mostly to run old DOS games. Games that won't run at all under Windows (you could insert "Linux" there just as well, or "OS X", or "HP-UX", or whatever you run on reasonably modern equipment). Games that run waaaaay too fast. Games that "don'y play well with others" and you wish you could have stuck in on its own machine even when you really *did* run DOS just to keep it from breaking other programs.
It makes a GREAT debugging tool, for those who know how to write low-level code. As long as your problem doesn't involve instruction timing or asynchronous events, Bochs works almost as well as a VERY expensive ICE.
Another nice use, I already mentioned partially, you can put a program in it's own "clean room". Ever wanted to see how some of the classic virii worked but didn't have the balls to risk your own machine? Put it in a Bochs and let it do its thing.
Additionally, IMO, the speed (as of 1.4, and they claim twice the performance for 2.0) suffices for any CPU or graphics non-intensive task under Windows 95 OSR2, with FAR better compatibility than Wine (Not to disparage Wine, a great and worthy poject, but you just can't beat the real thing for accuracy of emulation )
The one "bad" thing about Bochs, and I hope a developer for it reads this, you need to manually calibrate the IPS, and then everything else *relative* to that value. Although I understand why getting an *exact* value counts as an almost impossible feat, I don't see why a simple few-second internal benchmark at startup couldn't come to within 10% of the "right" value. Admittedly, though, I haven't played with 2.0 (away from home for a few days), so if you've added that for this release, my apologies (and thanks).
I'll tell you what Bochs is good for (Score:2, Interesting)
True, SoftICE is much faster and has better debugging features. But Windows developers aren't stupid -- if they really don't want you stepping through their code, the program can either disable SoftICE, or detect its presence and refuse to run.
That's the advantage of Bochs: It's undetectable. Slow execution won't give it away, because the real-time clock is as fake as all the other Bochs hardware. It's like hardware ICE without the $40,000 price tag.
Also, because Bochs is open-source, you can put in useful hacks like "Copy this big chunk of memory from the virtual computer to a file on the real computer every time this line is executed".
Has anybody tried this? (Score:2)
Bochs Miscellany (Score:2)
I did get Minix booting on top of Bochs on top of Linux. I should have tried Minix->Bochs->UML->Linux but I didn't bother. Shows the usefulness of good interfaces.
Doesn't boot plan9 (Score:2)
[snip cos of
PBS...Plan 9 from Bell Labs
entry: 80100020
cpu0: 2MHz GenuineIntel P5 (cpuid: AX 0x0513 DX 0x800111)
9486 free pages, 37944K bytes, 167544K swap
ilock:: ad de ad de 06 00 00 00 3b 89 18 80 08 70 2c 80 01 00 00 00 70 65 01 80
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
ilock:: ad de ad de 06 00 00 00 3b 89 18 80 08 70 2c 80 01 00 00 00 70 65 01 80
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Times have changed (Score:2)
You have to click a EULA to get this link but it exists
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/9down4e/compre
start here - http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/download.htm
what a click can do (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It must be good! (Score:2, Funny)
Last time, I had to like... select a computer name and everything! I was exhausted!
Seriously, what the hell is causing you trouble? Don't have a CD key? Forgot to connect a keyboard?
Re:It must be good! (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, booting off that CD is pretty tough.
Last time, I had to like... select a computer name and everything! I was exhausted!
Err.. The myth of 'Windows is Easy to Install' must be crushed.
Let me illuminate the joys of installing Windows 2000 server.
Boot of of CD-Rom
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Partition Drive
Reboot
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Format Drive
Reboot
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Choose crap
Wait for Windows to install ~ 10 min
Reboot
Copy cryptic crap off of security sticker
Choose password
Reboot
turn off 'helpfull' how to use windoes help thingy
move home-page off of MSN
install SP3 ~ 15 min
reboot
install ie6 ~ 10 min
reboot
move home-page off MSN again.
install 'critical updates' ~ 10 min
reboot
install office ~ 5 min
install office updates ~ 10 min
install office critical updates ~5 min
install antivirus ~ 5 min
Ugh
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
Windows unattend files are just about identical for both new and upgrade installs. Sounds like you ought to check them out
ostiguy
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
Have you tried that with "XP" products?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
How about the silly WPA reg keys?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
Also, last time I installed XP (this weekend incidentally) it was put in CD, reboot, format drive (it was already partitioned), install files, reboot, it installs more, username, passwords etc, reboot.
then just install XP service pack1 wich when I installed had all the critical updates.
like 90% of the steps you mentioned have direct equivalents in *nix/*bsd installs. Getting all the software up to date would probably take longer though! I also will say it takes me longer to get a *nix install customized the way I like it then it does in windows--more programs to set up is all.
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
You think windows is hard? (Score:3, Funny)
Boot of of CD-Rom
Read several F(number) pages of information and decide which boot option is right for me ~ 5 min
Curse at a system that does not let my set my keyboard mapping to dvorak before forcing me to enter textual data ~ frustration +1
Wait for anaconda et all to load ~ 2 min
Select my keyboard mapping and mouse type (*)
Get to the partition screen and find out that the installer doesn't dynamically resize windows partitions to make room for itself. ~ frustration +2
Reboot
Warez partition magic
Use partition magic ~ 30 min
Reboot
Repeat above steps until the partition screen comes up.
Set up mount points and a swap partition because the system won't configure available space in a sane way automatically ~ frustration +3
Fsck & mkfs ~ 2 min
Choose 'custom' from the workstation/server/custom menu, and select package groups that I think I'll need.
Select "choose individual packages".
Realize that package management systems under linux don't descriminate between packages that users may or may not want to include (konqueror) and packages that are mandatory and must always be installed without bothering the user and making him/her read up on them (glibc) and should only be exposed as options when the user selects "ultra-expert" install mode ~ frustration +4, 5 min (to find the things I need [luckily I know what they are] )
Realize that standard desktop OS functionality requires a default install greater than 1 GB ~ 2 seconds, frustration +5
Wait for packages to install ~ 55 min
Install grub
Reboot
Enter install program because I didn't remove the CD and the CD boot loader isn't smart enough to present me with a "Press any key to boot from CD...." timeout option which boots from the hard disk if the OS is already installed ~ frustration +5
Remove CD
Reboot
Realize that even though linux has reached version 2.4 and redhat's distro has been around for so many years, no one has ever considered that long, fast-scrolling startup text barfed out by the kernel scares away users who "can't read the error messages fast enough to keep up" and instead replaced them with a progress bar by default, while still making advanced startup an option ~ frustration +6
Realize something similar while watching the init scripts ~ frustration +7
Appreciate that X just works and that I can log in graphically and that I don't have to configure anything in order to get to that point ~ frustration +6
Remember that windows has been this way for a very long time ~ frustration +7
Log in
Click the little red exclamation point, and read an error message that says I have to be registered in order to get automatic security updates ~ frustration +8
Remember that not even windows is that persnickety about giving out security patches ~ frustration +9
Remember that windows requires you to accept an agreement giving MS total access to your computer in order to patch critical security flaws ~ frustration +8
Register for rhn ~ 10 min
Change home page from redhat to my usual home page.
Be thankful that multiple reboots aren't necessary while downloading software updates ~ frustration +7, 2 hours
Download openoffice because it's been neglected in favor of inferior, splintered, buggy, incompatible individual office programs which were installed even thought I didn't want them.
Be forced to open a console, untar, find the setup file, and run it in order to install an office program because there is still no single, unified package management system for linux which results in confused users and puts extra strain on developers who package their own software by forcing them to either neglect certain distros, learn and use all of the major packaging systems, or write their own setup programs ~ frustration +8
Make an educated guess that even if package management system developers could put aside their egos, develop a decent universal package system, and get every distro to use it that it would still force me to use the console ~ frustration +9
Try to launch openoffice and find out that it crashes ~frustration +10
Read man pages, docs, visit IRC help chat, etc... ~ 2 hours, frustration +11
Give up for now, get a snack ~ 10 min, frustration +10
Realize the reason why the interface feels so uncomfortable: my wheel mouse doesn't work ~ frustration +11
Read up on XF86Config, hit IRC again, man pages, man pages, man pages galore ~ 30 min, frustration +12
Figure out how to turn on mouse wheel suuport ~ frustration +11
Be forced to edit a text config file in order to get a very basic feature to work that would be easy to autodetect and autoconfigure in the install program ~ frustration +12
Go through an incredibly long series of steps that I won't list here with lots of downloading, compiling (!), manual reading, IRCing, etc... to get 3D acceleration to work ~ 7 hours, frustration +15
Reinstall windows 2000 professional (it's a dual boot system), (it needed to be done anyway) ~ a whole lot less time, very little trouble.
Click "I Agree" for the first time after turning 18 ~ 1 second, freedom -<rotate clockwise="90 degrees">8</rotate>
Realize that gnu/linux will never take off as a mainstream desktop OS as long as it is hard to install, presents scary "informative" messages, forces the user to learn the console, has a default install that's more bloated than windows (yeah, really), and so on..., and that as long as windows remains the desktop OS of choice everyone loses, including gnu/linux users ~ frustration +<rotate clockwise="90 degrees">8</rotate>
Post on slashdot about my experience ~ -3 karma (I post at +2, slashbots who don't like to hear jaded but honest criticism of OSS can get it down to -1)
Sigh in despair ~ no net change
Re:You think windows is hard? (Score:2)
It's also quite funny that you *expect* Linux to be able to handle partitions from another OS, to come with a full blown office-suite and use less than 1GB, while Windows does none of those. (And if Windows would include MS Office it would take even more space)
Seems we got quite a double standard here...
But SuSE can even handle your double standard: If you select minimum install without X, it takes somewhere between 200 and 500 Megs AFAIK. Yes that means no office suite, but you can't have everything.
Using RedHat as a desktop is like using a rackmounted computer as a desktop.
Sure it can be done, but it's (needlessly, desktop computers are just as readily available as Linux desktop distributions) complicated and awkard.
Saying Linux sucks for the desktop because of RedHat is like saying x86 sucks for the desktop because you had to install a graphics card in your rackmounted computer for desktop use.
Re:You think windows is hard? (Score:2)
Cool! I'll have to try it.
It's also quite funny that you *expect* Linux to be able to handle partitions from another OS,
Windows 2000 handles partitions from other OSs by default -- they're all other MS OSs so they don't really "count", but the support is there. With an add-in app, you can mount ext2 disks as drives or browse them with an explorer-like interface.
to come with a full blown office-suite
I don't expect it to come with a full-blown office suite. I would really like two changes to be made:
1. Don't install office software by default, or give me an option to deselect "office software" as a whole (meaning no abiword, no gnumeric, etc...) to de-bloat default installs.
2. Offer the integrated, compatible, newbie-frendly, full-featured, open-source package (openoffice) by default rather than a loose collection of apps that are "just fine for 75% of the things you want to do". In the OSS world, competition does not bring down prices; it divides the knowledge base, the developer base, and slows adoption.
and use less than 1GB
Windows 2000 Profession installs by default at about 900M on my machine. Pre-ultrabloat versions of windows that are still quite capable for 99% of the things people want to do (e.g. Windows 98SE) install in under 300M, or 400M with all the goodies.
If you select minimum install without X...
I'm sorry, but if it doesn't come with a GUI, it's not going to be accepted by the mainstream public.
Saying Linux sucks for the desktop because of RedHat is like saying x86 sucks for the desktop because you had to install a graphics card in your rackmounted computer for desktop use.
I'm not saying that linux sucks because redhat sucks. I'm saying that GNU/Linux in general is not at a stage where it can be expected to be adopted by the mainstream public. Yes, I've tried the other bigger distros (debian, slack, etc...). I helped out a friend with some minor issue when he was installing an old version of SuSe on his machine, but I've never used that particular distro myself.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea: I'm not defending windows. There are things I absolutely hate about windows, though the majority of them are ethical problems like DRM in the integrated media system, or unreasonable licensing terms. I'm saying that there's some real bottom-line, basic newbie-friendliness that's missing from gnu/linux distros. I also don't want you to think that the challenges and frustrations I listed above are necessarily the biggest problems for technical users. I actually have fun when I'm solving a problem or getting some strange feature to work. The longer it takes and the more involved it is, the greater the sense of satisfaction I get when I finish. My point of view is that making several simple changes to common distros could save a lot of hassle, greatly increase gnu/linux adoption among people who are fed up with MS BS, and even make the lives of technical people more productive and fun. I like solving problems, but at a certain point I prefer a system that just functions "like it should" so that I can get real work done.
server side office active X controls (Score:2)
plus they usually mae you upgrade IE to run windows update, it requires ie5 atm.
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
Actually, this one of my better Microsoft servers: it, with a crappy VB program I wrote,is used to automatically convert and
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
If not, please send me a copy [mailto], thanks!
Re:It must be good! (Score:2)
Someone mod this up (Score:2)
This comment is rated SUPER A-OK!
Re:Can I run Bochs on PPC, Mac or Sparc? (Score:2)
Not pointless at all. Suppose you're trying to analyze the workings of some software that has been rigged not to work under a debugger (such as SoftIce)? Running in a "Bochs" might be a way to do it.
Re:How well does it work? (Score:2)
As per the Bochs Faq Page: [sourceforge.net]
Q: Tell me about peformance when running bochs?
Because Bochs emulates every x86 instruction and all the devices in a PC system, it does not reach high emulation speeds. Kevin reported approximately 1.5MIPS using bochs on a 400Mhz PII Linux machine. Users who have an x86 processor and want the highest emulation speeds may want to consider PC virtualization sotware uch as plex86 (free) or vmware (commercial).
Re:How well does it work? (Score:4, Informative)
How the hell do you emulate an API?
Either you provide the functions or you dont
The difference is, an emulator emulates actual hardware in software, Wine runs directly on the hardware, and just implements win32 so that Windows programs can run.
Wine -> Implements Win32 API on Linux, all code run directly on hardware - requires x86 machine to run it on. Due to the Win32 API being badly documented, tends to have compatibility problems.
VMWare -> virualizes the hardware, ie. creates a whole new virtual x86 machine in which code runs directly on the hardware. Some things emulated due to being impossible or difficult to share between the host and guest operating system. Requires x86 machine to run it on, but is generally very compatible, and allows you to install (in theory) any x86 operating system.
Bochs -> Complete emulation of every aspect of an x86 machine, all code running within a Bochs machine is interpreted by software. Will be very slow, but can run on many different platforms and processors, and should be pretty much as compatible as VMWare. Will allow installing any x86 operating system.
Flex86 -> An open source VMWare clone, shares some code with Bochs, will have all the advantages of VMWare, and has source too. Still in development though....
Re:How well does it work? (Score:2)
Winelib used to be a straight Win32 API implementation, but I believe the Wine team changed that, so a Winelib application behaves more like a Win32 binary now.
Re:How well does it work? (Score:2)
Wine -> Implements Win32 API on Linux, all code run directly on hardware - requires x86 machine to run it on. Due to the Win32 API being badly documented, tends to have compatibility problems.
Actually, you only need an x86 to run Win32 binaries with WINE. If you recompile the application using libwine it is a native binary and can therefore run on whatever architecture you want (stuff like endianess issues aside). Add yes, libewine does run on more than the x86.
Re:Do they use JIT? (Score:3, Informative)
Is BOCHS smart enough to let the host machine run the non-privledged instructions if the host happens to be an x86 chip?
No, Bochs is a pure interpreter. A less mature project that attempts to do this is Plex86 [nongnu.org], and a commercial alternative is VMWare.
here it is: (Score:2, Informative)
Wine just emulates winshit's APIs; it will only run on PC computers. It is a hell of a lot faster, but has more errors due to lack of winshit documentation. Most WINE crashes also occur in windows btw.
VMWare/MacOnLinux is a middle-ground between the two. It is a PC emulator, but instead of making the virtual processor out of C it is made out of assembly on the same machine it is emulating. The processor knows every command the virtual one needs, making the processes a lot more efficient.
Other thing such as big endian v. little endian are involved, but the user doesn't need to worry about that.
Re:here it is: (Score:2, Interesting)
However, PC I/O is (always??) memory-mapped. The processor writes commands to certain places in memory to cause things to happen. VMWare virtualizes this process; it uses the memory management unit to trap attempts to write to I/O devices on virtual machines. It then figures out what the virtualized program is trying to do, and does the actual correct thing with the real hardware. If the virtual machine is trying to write to disk, for instance, VMWare emulates the responses that the real hardware would make, but actually writes to or reads from a file on the host machine's filesystem.
Apparently this trickery runs at a lower level than the operating system, because you can run just about any OS that's out.
You notice this overhead the most on video and hard disk writes. Both video and disk I/O are *a lot* slower under VMWare. Network operations, however, aren't very affected; they run at nearly full speed. You can run most server-type applications very nicely under VMWare, unless they are extremely disk-intensive. You wouldn't want to run a database, but Apache runs great.
Games are pretty much a loss in VMWare; the video virtualization is simply too slow. Solitaire is fine. Quake would be a slideshow, if it ran at all.
To help avoid the disk I/O bottleneck, VMWare has the ability to assign a 'raw disk' to a virtual machine. This would probably be a lot faster, but I haven't worked with it. There are also versions of VMWare that are designed to entirely replace the host operating system. I imagine that they are much more efficient, but haven't worked with them either. (they cost thousands, not just hundreds.)
Bochs, on the other hand, emulates EVERYTHING, including the CPU. This full virtualization allows the emulation to run on any processor, but it's A LOT slower than a real CPU (which is essentially a highly-tuned hardware emulator of the X86 instruction set.) The X86 is devilishly hard to emulate properly, because of all the different instruction layers (8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, 80586, 80686). You have to spend a lot of CPU time figuring out what each instruction is: is it 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, MMX, or SSE? You can't take the same kind of easy shortcuts you can with cleaner instruction sets. Decoding takes a long time and a lot of host processor cycles, so you take an enormous speed hit.
On top of that, you ALSO have to virtualize the video, I/O, and network, so you get all the overhead of VMWare, above and beyond the CPU emulation bottleneck. You probably couldn't run a realistic server of ANY sort under Bochs.
Re:Mac hardware emu? (Score:2)
I know, I'd like that too. :(
Time to buy a mac?
Re:Mac hardware emu? (Score:2)
I think that must be a typo; the Steve Jobs who took millions from Bill gates, killed the Mac clones, and buried their x86 efforts is already the evil clone.
Re:Trade off ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Result--> massively quick win98 install booting automatically into Photoshop...Almost like one (slightly overweight) application... at least that seems like it would be the slickest way to do it... Last time I checked, photoshop didn't run too great under wine, and the 98lite bare bones install could cut stuff down to about 40 megs...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The point of Bochs... (Score:2)
Those of you seeking Windows emulation should look at Plex86 (link was posted earlier) - which takes advantage of Bochs. On the mailing list archives you'll find instructions for getting Windows NT and Windows 98 running (saw a mention of Win2k as well). Plex86 might not be ready for general use, but power users should find it useful.