Has anyone tried SCO Openserver~

Discussions about using non Windows and Linux guests such as FreeBSD, DOS, OS/2, OpenBSD, etc.
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Has anyone tried SCO Openserver~

Post by igoddard »

I have an occasional need to run SCO stuff. I have it as a multiboot on a rather ancient laptop which might not last much longer. I very much doubt that it would even reinstall on the SATA disk of my current laptop. If I can get it running in VB this would be a solution for me. Has anyone tried this previously?

Ian
Technologov
Volunteer
Posts: 3342
Joined: 10. May 2007, 16:59
Location: Israel

Post by Technologov »

Since SCO is anti-Linux company, I would NOT deal with them.

Political issue. They are my strategic enemies.
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Post by igoddard »

Technologov wrote:Since SCO is anti-Linux company, I would NOT deal with them.

Political issue. They are my strategic enemies.
Those of us who were Unix users from way before Linux set eyes on Minix remember the old SCO. They provided just about the only means of running Unix on PCs.

There are many users of SCO products from those days. Those users were not even direct customers of the old SCO, let alone the new SCO; they were customers of turnkey software vendors who were, in the particular case I'm concerned with, customers of the old SCO.

Those users are not parties to the SCO/Linux row. Do you seriously suggest that they should not be supported in running their businesses simply because someone who subsequently took over one of the suppliers to one of their suppliers is anti-Linux?

Such an attitude is not one which is likely to win friends for the Linux cause.

Ian
nuno
Posts: 40
Joined: 12. May 2007, 01:33

Post by nuno »

Openserver should run fine. But the best way to know for sure is to try to install it yourself.

Regarding the SCO stuff, the chances are any "non-specifically-payed-to developer" will rather work in the 1000th bug in the database than on anything that touches SCO...

Just bad karma. Right now if VirtualBox announced Openserver official compatibility, even tough it's technically good, it would be bad publicity to have VirtualBox appear in the same news as a SCO product :-) It's that simple.

Back to the subject: Just try it out and report back ;-)
Peace,
Nuno
slightcrazed
Posts: 1
Joined: 1. Oct 2007, 03:47

Well said

Post by slightcrazed »

igoddard wrote:
Technologov wrote:Since SCO is anti-Linux company, I would NOT deal with them.

Political issue. They are my strategic enemies.
Those of us who were Unix users from way before Linux set eyes on Minix remember the old SCO. They provided just about the only means of running Unix on PCs.

There are many users of SCO products from those days. Those users were not even direct customers of the old SCO, let alone the new SCO; they were customers of turnkey software vendors who were, in the particular case I'm concerned with, customers of the old SCO.

Those users are not parties to the SCO/Linux row. Do you seriously suggest that they should not be supported in running their businesses simply because someone who subsequently took over one of the suppliers to one of their suppliers is anti-Linux?

Such an attitude is not one which is likely to win friends for the Linux cause.

Ian
Well said Ian.

I also have a need to run SCO through a virtual environment, not by preference, but because my job requires it. I'd be interested to learn if you were able to get this working satisfactorily.

To any other linux zealots who like to bash SCO at every possible opportunity: Some of us are stuck with SCO in our lives, whether we want it or not. As a 'not-by-choice' user, please don't lump me into the hierarchy at SCO that decided on their lawsuit. It pains me to no end that any mention of SCO, legitimate or not, on any website that has even a modicum of linux users brings out nothing but bashing and venom, against both the company, and often times the poster as well.

If you don't have anything constructive to say, then shut your trap.

Randall
jorgev
Posts: 1
Joined: 15. Feb 2008, 19:45

SCO on Virtual Box

Post by jorgev »

Hi,
Were you able to install openServer on VB? We will try to install openServer 5.0.7 over VB. Any clues ?
Thanks!
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Re: SCO on Virtual Box

Post by igoddard »

jorgev wrote:Hi,
Were you able to install openServer on VB? We will try to install openServer 5.0.7 over VB. Any clues ?
Thanks!
I haven't tried running it. I did consider using VMware as this is supposed to run SCO by emulating a Buslogic controller. It requires the download of a BL driver diskette image.

AIUI it the difficulties of running a lot of Unix flavours under H/W emulation stems from the fact that they use WD drivers built around very early H/W versions. Whilst modern H/W may continue to support the behaviour expected of earlier versions modern emulators often don't. ISTM that it would be very useful if VB were to include emulation for some common SCSI H/W such as Adaptec.

Ian
The_Librarian
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Mar 2008, 19:49

Post by The_Librarian »

*bump*

I tried installing Sco Openserver 5.0.7 but it failed.

I suspect I used the wrong value for defbootstring :?
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Still a problem

Post by igoddard »

I just found my old 5.0.4 disk.

Googling for openserver and virtualbox revealed this: http://virtualbox.de/changeset/9572 which indicates that the necessary support for the SCO's idea of an IDE controller has gone into the VB source - and requires only 7 lines of executable code.

So far so good.

Unfortunately my disk requires a boot floppy - and no floppy drive on the laptop. I copied over the boot image from the CDROM and used VB to mount this as a floppy. This booted and initialised the wd controller correctly (which it wouldn't on 1.6.6) but came up with System Error 5 when starting the installation.

I tried installing the oss622a.btld from SCO's site which replaces the floppy driver. 622a is for OS 5.0.5 but it appears to install on 5.0.4 but with no success at fixing the problem. I also tried bypassing the floppy by converting the floppy image to an iso but still no luck, so there it rests unless someone can suggest an effective bootstring.

If you have a SCO version that boots its installer off CD rather than floppy you may have more success.

Ian
SSCBrian
Volunteer
Posts: 365
Joined: 13. Jun 2008, 15:04
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 8 RTM (MSDN)

Post by SSCBrian »

Technologov wrote:Since SCO is anti-Linux company, I would NOT deal with them.

Political issue. They are my strategic enemies.
The problem is that some of us still have to deal with it on a daily basis due to legacy systems. Keep in mind that SCO was not an anti-Linux company until AFTER Caldera (remember them? They were a Linux company) bought them... Then Caldera changed it's name to SCO and went on an anti-Linux rampage. Somewhat ironic that a Linux company turned so anti-Linux, eh?
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Post by igoddard »

By way of experiment I hooked up a floppy drive to another box (Via Epia MII board).

The box will boot from the SCO boot floppy and proceed beyond the point where it failed under VB using the disk image file although I aborted without doing a full install.

I can read from /dev/fd0 under linux.

I then tried to boot a machine in VB using /dev/fd0. The result is either a message that the boot medium cannot be read, a continuous stream of Es written to the VM's screen or the whole box being hung and needing a reboot to free it.

Ian
loky777
Posts: 1
Joined: 18. Oct 2008, 16:11

Post by loky777 »

other linux zealots who like to bash SCO at every possible opportunity: Some of us are stuck with SCO in our lives, whether we want it or not. As a 'not-by-choice' user, please don't lump me into the hierarchy at SCO that decided on their lawsuit. It pains me to no end that any mention of SCO, legitimate or not, on any website that has even a modicum of linux users brings out nothing but bashing and venom, against both the company, and often times the poster as well.
igoddard
Posts: 47
Joined: 6. Sep 2007, 00:18

Post by igoddard »

igoddard wrote: I then tried to boot a machine in VB using /dev/fd0. The result is either a message that the boot medium cannot be read
Hmm. This looks as if it might the explanation of that:

Gleaned from comp.unix.sco.misc:
'The original IBM PC BIOS, back in 1981, required a specific
"bootable floppy" signature -- values 0x55 0xAA in the last two bytes of
the boot sector. Almost no later PC enforces this, because some early
clones forgot to check for it, some OS vendors shipped disks which
hadn't been tested on "real" IBM PCs and didn't have the signature, so
then real PCs had to be modified to ignore the signature. OSR5's floppy
boot code does not have the signature.'

From http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk ... ?rev=12649:
/* Test MBR magic number. */
if (aMBR[510] != 0x55 || aMBR[511] != 0xaa)
return VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER;

It looks as if VB won't be able to boot any floppy which doesn't incorporate this ?obsolete signature.

Ian
SSCBrian
Volunteer
Posts: 365
Joined: 13. Jun 2008, 15:04
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 8 RTM (MSDN)

Post by SSCBrian »

igoddard wrote:Gleaned from comp.unix.sco.misc:
'The original IBM PC BIOS, back in 1981, required a specific
"bootable floppy" signature -- values 0x55 0xAA in the last two bytes of
the boot sector. Almost no later PC enforces this, because some early
clones forgot to check for it, some OS vendors shipped disks which
hadn't been tested on "real" IBM PCs and didn't have the signature, so
then real PCs had to be modified to ignore the signature. OSR5's floppy
boot code does not have the signature.'

It looks as if VB won't be able to boot any floppy which doesn't incorporate this ?obsolete signature.
Interestingly enough, I was just talking to someone about that the other day. He was making his own bootable shell (for fun), so we were talking about the bootstrapping process. I didn't know that was considered "obsolete". I grew up in the era of the "clones that weren't" (early IBM PC days, when most "clones" were really just "mostly compatible"). I wrote my own bootloaders a couple of times and it was common knowledge that this was one of the requirements. Not sure how an OS vendor could miss that...
BiggRanger
Posts: 7
Joined: 21. Oct 2008, 05:38
Primary OS: MS Windows XP
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: OpenServer 5.0.7

Post by BiggRanger »

I've been trying to install SCO OpenServer 5.0.5. I've been booting from a bootable CD image. When I get into the part of the install where it is preparing the disk it fails with the following error:

"/ramFS/configdisk.configdisk terminated by signal B"

It seems that anytime OpenServer tries to do something with the disk it fails.

VirtualBox settings:
OS Type is set to Other/Unknown
IDE controller is a PIIX3
config VDI with a 1.0GB disk
CD-ROM is an image

This is what OpenServer is reporting:
%adapter 0x0170-0x0177 15 type=IDE ctrl=secondary dvr=wd
%tape - - type=IDE ctrl=pri cfg=slv dvr=Stp->wd
%cd-rom - - type=IDE ctrl=pri cfg=slv dvr=Srom->wd
%disk 0x01F0-0x01F7 14 type=W0 unit=0 cyls=520 hds=64 secs=63


And this is from the end of the VB log file.
00:00:00.947 Guest Log: BIOS: VirtualBox 2.0.2
00:00:00.947 PIT: mode=2 count=0x10000 (65536) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:00.967 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: RESET, DevSel=0 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0x00 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:00.967 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: finished processing RESET
00:00:00.969 Guest Log: BIOS: ata0-0: PCHS=2080/16/63 LCHS=520/64/63
00:00:00.970 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: RESET, DevSel=0 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0x00 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:00.971 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: finished processing RESET
00:00:00.971 PIT: mode=2 count=0x48d3 (18643) - 64.00 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:00.977 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=00000000 w=720 h=400 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0
00:00:03.972 PIT: mode=2 count=0x10000 (65536) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:03.974 Guest Log: BIOS: Booting from CD-ROM...
00:00:04.021 Guest Log: BIOS: int13_cdemu function AH=FA unsupported, returns fail
00:00:23.719 Guest Log: BIOS: int13_harddisk: function 0Ch unimplemented, returns success
00:00:23.977 PIT: mode=2 count=0xffff (65535) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:23.977 PIT: mode=2 count=0xffff (65535) - 18.20 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:23.977 PIT: mode=2 count=0x2e9b (11931) - 100.00 Hz (ch=0)
00:00:34.062 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: RESET, DevSel=0 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0xf0 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:34.063 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: finished processing RESET
00:00:34.064 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: RESET, DevSel=0 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0xa0 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:34.064 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: finished processing RESET
00:00:34.064 PIIX3 ATA: LUN#2: performing device RESET
00:00:35.103 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: RESET, DevSel=1 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0x70 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:35.104 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#0: finished processing RESET
00:00:36.853 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: RESET, DevSel=1 AIOIf=0 CmdIf0=0x08 (-1 usec ago) CmdIf1=0x00 (-1 usec ago)
00:00:36.854 PIIX3 ATA: Ctl#1: finished processing RESET
Post Reply