Instant death with Windows/Qemu

Forum: DSL Embedded
Topic: Instant death with Windows/Qemu
started by: tlavoie

Posted by tlavoie on Oct. 27 2005,20:43

Hi all,

I've recently started trying to use DSL embedded on a couple of dual-Athlon, WinXP systems. Running from the dsl-windows.bat script, my cmd window dies immediately.

Are there problems with certain hardware or with other programs (virus checkers etc.)?

Thanks,
Tim

Posted by Manuel on Oct. 29 2005,20:34

I have the same problem on Windows 98 SE. I get 'QEMU (Stopped)', program is not responding anymore, has to be killed with CTRL+ALT+DEL.

I just downloaded an older version (dsl-1.3-embedded.zip), same problem.

I'm running it from hard disk, not from USB stick.

This is my first try with Damn Small Linux

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Oct. 30 2005,01:01

If I remember correctly, qemu does not support win9x, so you may be out of luck.

Besides, anything you would be running 98 on is likely to be slow enough that embedded would be unusably slow anyway.

-J.P.

Posted by Manuel on Oct. 30 2005,02:33

Thanks for your quick reply, too bad it might not work on Win98, the readme file only says:

Quote

To use the Virtual Machine provided by Qemu...

When Running from Windows:
Double click on 'dsl-windows.bat'

It doesn't mention not running on 98.

Quote (SaidinUnleashed @ Oct. 29 2005,21:01)

Besides, anything you would be running 98 on is likely to be slow enough that embedded would be unusably slow anyway.

I Know, but my Windows is very stripped down, and fast enough. I was just curious to work with DSL without having to reboot all the time to the cd, and al little easier to save settings like ip number and dns servers.

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 30 2005,06:24

I wouldn't bother with DSL-embedded unless I was using a minimum 1.4 GHz CPU

So if you are running Win98 on that box, maybe you can get it to work. Try visiting the qemu web site and see if they can give you more info.

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 30 2005,06:27

tlavoie,

I use DSL-embedded / qemu on a WinXP SP2 system with Trend Officescan virus checker and Windows firewall and it works fine.

However, in the past I have needed to start qemu 2 or 3 times before it will come to life. This newer version of QEMU seems to be better than the older one in that regard.

Maybe the Dual CPU is throwing things off. Can you turn OFF one of the CPUs in you BIOS and then reboot and try again?

Posted by Manuel on Oct. 30 2005,13:29

Quote (cbagger01 @ Oct. 30 2005,01:24)

I wouldn't bother with DSL-embedded unless I was using a minimum 1.4 GHz CPU

Using a Celeron 366... But my Windows is really very fast on that machine, it has no IE, no Outlook, no ActiveX, no file- and printsharing, and lots of other (dangerous or unneeded) stuff removed. It has a Win95 gui. In certian perspectives it's faster as some modern machines with XP on it.

I'm being stubborn and still think it could run on my machine

Do you have the adres of the quemu web site? Cann't find it. Thanks!

Posted by tlavoie on Oct. 30 2005,15:56

Quote (cbagger01 @ Oct. 30 2005,01:27)

Hi there,

DSL itself does work if I boot from the cd, so I'm wondering more if it is Qemu which doesn't like the dual-CPU setup. Clobbering one CPU might be interesting as a test, but not something I'd want to do typically.

The virus checker is Symantec's corporate offering, though turning that off is the one thing I can't do on the work systems. When I have some free time, I think I'll try Qemu itself with other OS images to see how that works.

Cheers,
Tim

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 31 2005,17:40

FYI,

QEMU needs lots of RAW CPU horsepower to work.

Merely slimming down the typical bloated default MSWindows installation usually will not work.

Figure that the emulation speed is 1/5 or 1/6 (or worse) of the native CPU speed. But this ration gets even worse when you are using a lower speed cpu because the native OS overhead is a higher percentage of the total available CPU cycles.

So at best your 366 celeron will have roughly the same performance as a 60MHz CPU. Any more likely the equivalent of a 50MHz i486 CPU (almost unusable for any purpose).

Posted by Manuel on Oct. 31 2005,22:22

@ cbagger01: I had no idea hów much CPU it needs... I'm new to this, thanks a lot for explaining!

I will not attempt to run embedded DSL on this machine any further, you've convinced me with clear arguments. And by the time I have a faster machine, it will run native Linux. In the mean time I will try a few live cd's to see what I like most.

Thanks again.