Time machine: Solaris 2.6 on QEMU

A colossal chunk of my authentic profession within the 1990s used to be spent with a Sparcstation on my desk. Sooner than that the 68000 Sun2 and Sun3 floated previous my sticky fingers nonetheless the Sparc machines immediate superseded these. I form no longer take into accout too worthy about which ones: barely definite there used to be on the least one IPX, one Sparcstation 5, a Sparcstation 10 and then the closing one used to be perchance an Extremely 1 or maybe even an Extremely 5. It used to be a truly very long time within the past. Every once in some time I bear in mind how productive these machines had been and accomplish a diminutive Ebay digging on how worthy one shall be fee to enjoy round. Other than I form no longer enjoy the room for more machines and the belief of attempting to revive 25 365 days light hardware from that technology is neatly previous my electronic capabilities.

By no manner alarm, QEMU is right here. Following these gorgeous instructions from Adafruit, you would perchance perchance perchance also install Solaris 2.6 and revel in your very have emulated machine.

Existing that there would possibly be one instruction in there I am no longer definite you will want. At one level, the Adafruit article says you’ve got to “build the scsi alternatives” and reveals a cryptic code that pushes a hex number trusty into a file on the disk image of your half-built machine. I skipped that. Now not most effective attain I no longer know what the hex number is or represents, the ingredient boots gorgeous with out that half.

What can you attain with it?

I had a colleague again then who used to be unimpressed with Solaris. He used to be a dyed-in-the-wool SunOS fan, a BSD man. When Sun announced they had been transferring to SVR4 and a long way from the utter of their very have operating system, the collective shouting of SunOS administrators used to be heard as rolling instruct at some level of Usenet. My colleague referred to Solaris as “Slowlaris” and he wasn’t awful. Sun perceived to bloat every OS release with slower and slower GUI instruments, in particular in comparison to the immediate SunView windowing system on the 68030 Sun3. The X basically based utterly mostly systems felt a diminutive sluggish and having to re-learn the set the entire configuration files lived used to be a predominant trouble. About a years on and no longer most effective had been these windowing systems long gone nonetheless so used to be the BSD basically based utterly mostly Unix that most Sun admins had been accustomed to. The oncoming Dwelling windows onslaught had Sun shedding pastime in their 2d (third?) window management system OpenLook in favour of CDE as alliances had been shaped and damaged within the aftermath of the Unix wars. Then came the closing knife twist, they stopped transport a C compiler with the wicked operating system.

The closing one used to be in particular powerful to eliminate. Sun had consistently shipped a C compiler with the operating system, nonetheless now you needed to pay money money for it and it wasn’t low-payment. The ISO to salvage from the Adafruit instructions would not appear to enjoy a C compiler incorporated and from memory, whereas you happen to paid the kings ransom for the C compiler from Sun it came on a clear CD. As I acknowledged, this used to be all a truly very long time within the past.

First ingredient I did after the set up used to be build my user atmosphere to OpenLook – something of a mistake. OpenLook is spartan nonetheless it furthermore would not enjoy wherever reach the amount of instruments that had been equipped with CDE. Happily that you just would perchance hold out your desktop atmosphere on the login suggested.

Being in OpenLook (in truth it would possibly perhaps actually perchance perchance be known as OpenWindows at this stage) is love finding yourself on the again of the wheel of your first appropriate automobile. It feels familiar, the light muscle memory quiet works. There is that flaky Console window that you just consistently had half an gape on, it would possibly perhaps actually perchance perchance quiet level to you system messages (a diminutive love a old vogue notification bar for the OS) nonetheless it in general stopped working loads. I gape that as a thought, most Unices salvage no longer enjoy anything love that to any extent extra. The equipped apps are barely traditional: a textual convey material editor; the wacky Tell Instrument that has a half editor built into it; the more efficient Shell instrument that’s mainly a plump X terminal. These forms of are work-alikes for the light SunView instruments that older Sun guys frail for the explanation that originate. Re-familiarising myself with these items used to be stress-free nonetheless I needed a C compiler to develop a Howdy World app. I principal some manner to find files into the VM. Unfortunately a form of the networking instruments don’t work barely so neatly to any extent extra, I couldn’t find NFS to chat over with the NFS server on the host machine (and yes, I tried atmosphere this host again to NFS v2 nonetheless quiet bought the never precious “permission denied” error). I am definite that futzing round with the QEMU ports would likely form all of it out, or maybe I in truth enjoy the /etc/exports file wrongly configured nonetheless I misplaced pastime barely immediate. The equipped ftp client begins up nonetheless or no longer it is so light that nothing wishes to chat over with it to any extent extra, even atmosphere your ftp host again to PASV would not appear to fix it. One of the most effective ingredient that looks to semi-work is the venerable java basically based utterly mostly HotJava browser. HotJava struggles mightily with any in vogue internet build even supposing (TLS has killed entry to even Google). It used to be gorgeous talking to a local Python basically based utterly mostly internet server which used to be comely, as with out NFS or FTP I couldn’t determine a plan to switch files at some level of the Solaris VM. Why attain I must switch files? Attributable to I desire a rattling C compiler!

TGCWare to the rescue

I am no longer definite who the hero is that runs TGCWare nonetheless or no longer it’s awesome. The common “cc” instruct on Solaris normally lives in /usr/ucb/cc nonetheless in this case or no longer it’s a script telling you that you just enjoy no longer bought a C compiler. Discuss passive aggressive. On the host machine, I grabbed a gzipped copy of GCC 2.95 for Solaris 2.6, unzipped it and build it someplace the Python internet server would possibly perchance perchance find it. I made a puny internet page with a link to the file (in truth, I added a .png extension first), wrapped that in an img label and goal clicked on that in HotJava. HotJava obliged by giving me the choice to salvage the fraudulent png and once it used to be saved, I renamed it and ran the Solaris pkgadd instruct to install it. Then I renamed the /usr/ucb/cc shell script to cc.light and build a tender link in from /usr/tcgware/gcc29/bin/gcc to /usr/ucb/cc. Howdy World!

This used to be the set I gave up on OpenLook and switched to CDE. A lot of the chilly stuff Sun had been doing had re-oriented at some level of the Motif basically based utterly mostly CDE system and there used to be one instrument I was alive to to test out out again: Application Builder.

CDE used to be kinda chilly. Kinda.

Within the entire shifting alliances between Unix distributors, HP stepped up to the plate and equipped a GUI builder for CDE that’s in actuality barely trim. It makes utter of a skedaddle and drop system to construct your buttons and widgets onto control panes, then you “generate code” and voila, it dumps out a pile of C code that you just would perchance then assemble and drag. We frail this rather loads to develop puny utilities – the arena is a lesser issue with out trim, straightforward GUI builders love this. If the availability code for it is quiet floating round it’d be attention-grabbing to gaze if it runs on a most recent Linux.

The automagically generated code compiled gorgeous with gcc (as soon as I chanced on the set develop used to be installed, for reference or no longer it’s in /usr/ccs/bin). Voila, a transient CDE gui program that does… nothing. Aloof made me pleased even supposing.

Now I could enjoy to originate the job of getting the relaxation of the TGCWare binaries onto the machine, perchance most effective to originate with gzip, then wget, then I will snatch the entire lot trusty now from the VM with out having to utter the intermediary Python script. It is been a stress-free utter to play in that atmosphere again, even if love just a few other of us I’d in actuality love to gaze the availability code for SunOS launched so I will play with SunView again.

Edit: IT LIVES

The CDE instruments had been initiate sourced at some stage and that you just would perchance salvage them to your in vogue Unix!

Edit 2: a shiny higher files

I haven’t checked the hyperlinks in this files nonetheless right here is yet every other to the adafruit article for taking part in with solaris 2.6. Interestingly he says http is mainly most definitely the greatest ingredient that’s easy to find going for file switch.