dsl embedded

Forum: Site News
Topic: dsl embedded
started by: John

Posted by John on Nov. 05 2004,18:54

Hey guys, we got a version of 0.8.3 packaged with qemu. It is free of Metropipe code. Consider this release extremely alpha.

< http://ibiblio.org/pub....8.3.zip >
< http://ibiblio.org/pub....md5.txt >

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 05 2004,21:20

in future versions of this, can we lose the Dillo Welcome? Most people, I think will be running this at 640x480, and dillo runs waaaay off the top of the screen, with no way to close it.

EDITUS: this is too cool. its a little slow (but still faster than DSL on my lil toshiba) here's a screenie.

Posted by roberts on Nov. 05 2004,21:50

Use Dillo keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-Q will quit dillo.

Posted by roberts on Nov. 05 2004,21:54

There is also an emulated harddrive 60MB. You can backup/restore to hda
The autorestore feature works with this as well.

Posted by Tux5 on Nov. 06 2004,01:08

This works great on my Compaq Presario laptop. Thank you very much.

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 06 2004,03:58

So you guys like the qemu?
I wasnt sure the version I used upset you guys so I pulled the one I made for the board...
Did you guys re-write the .exe?
Would like a little pat on the back

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by John on Nov. 06 2004,06:24

My personal take...
It is a nice way to boot into a Linux environment without the need to burn a CD or have any other type of bootable media.

DSL runs at about 1/10 the speed in Qemu then from a CD on the same system -- more or less. Running DSL inside Qemu on modern hardware it will run about as fast as from a CD in an old P1 laptop.

It is also a nice way to get DSL on some of these systems which don't seem to be vesa compliant -- like the Dells made 2 or 3 years ago.

Overall it isn't my first choice, but it is a nice choice to have.

I think Qemu is great btw.

Brian, thank you for your early effort, but my main concern was using Metropipe's code. I wanted to make sure we were clean of anything that could be propiatary.

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 06 2004,14:55

omfg (*ico2 goes to download it), this will help majorly with making all those mydsl i am no longer able to find the time to do because of all the rebooting.

ico2

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 06 2004,15:02

i am downloading now, also wondering if it will run on my p3 533 with 320something mb of ram, aaaah well, if i don't have to waste a cd to experiment then who cares. i might put it on my "cd of usefulstuff which is already bootable with dsl, would be cool to have an embedded version of dsl too. as well as the windows 98 cabs, some rescue stuff, some apps and some other junk.

Posted by John on Nov. 06 2004,17:42

>wondering if it will run on my p3 533 with 320something mb of ram

Yes, but it is going to be slow. It seems that qemu's speed is really a function of processor speed. On a 2GHz processor it will run at a functional speed, but on a 500MHz system it is going to be frustrating.

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 06 2004,19:26

Oh and if you didnt know, you can use qemu to run any live cd distro, just modify the qemu-win.bat file to use the .iso of any live cd and it should auto start it...plus you can modify the amount of "reserved" memory it takes by changing the -m number in MBytes option in the .bat file as well

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 06 2004,19:29

If you want I can whip up a dsl-embedded development package...this will allow you to create a "harddrive" for dsl or other "LiveCD" distros to where you can mount it as a swap partition...this will make qemu alot faster/snappier

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by roberts on Nov. 06 2004,21:05

I would still think that you would not want a swapfile on a pendrive.

Because DSL is small all this fits nicely on a 128MB pendrive and no usb booting issues.

But of course you could add another emulated hardrive as swap if you have copied all of this into a windows folder.
I purposely did not include swap for the usb pendrive concerns.

And yes, you can run other liveCD distros, but then that would not be dsl-embedded.
If you want to do that then I would suggest that you join the qemu forums and post there.

Seems more people are interested in running Windows inside Linux based on the traffic there.

If you want to help DSL then posting what works and what doesn't work will be helpful.

Posted by drx456 on Nov. 07 2004,02:11

Where can I found the gemu?

Posted by roberts on Nov. 07 2004,02:44

The qemu site: < http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ >

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Nov. 07 2004,04:15

Can you mount a harddrive with this? Just tried with the gf's new computer, which is formatted NTFS, and couldn't access any files on the "normal" harddrive. (Haven't used DSL with NTFS yet, my XP machine is FAT32, and I don't have access at the moment to try this out).
If not, is there a way to copy files from the "real" HD to the "virtual" HD? Have a few tar.gzs and dsls I wanted to try,...

Posted by John on Nov. 07 2004,19:06

Looks like Tuxs.org already wrote a little piece about this:
< http://www.tuxs.org/dslwin.htm >

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 07 2004,21:37

ok, it works, slow but usable.
i tried it out and got onto the irc.
you should come on irc more often john, speak with the ones that worship you as a demigod.

Posted by John on Nov. 07 2004,23:36

>worship you as a demigod

That would disappear pretty quick. To be honest, the worse thing for a project lead to do is get a fat head. Success is 50% luck and 40% relying on the right people.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 08 2004,01:58

what's the other 10%? O_o

You would be shocked how many ideas get discussed in irc weeks or even months before we suggest them here in the forums...

-J.P.

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 08 2004,14:22

yep, true

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 08 2004,15:49

Quote (John @ Nov. 07 2004,14:06)

Looks like Tuxs.org already wrote a little piece about this:
< http://www.tuxs.org/dslwin.htm >

Sweet!!! I wonder if this will bring alot more people to the ranks of DSL??

Quote (SaidinUnleashed @ Nov. 07 2004,20:58)

what's the other 10%? O_o

Pure freeking luck!!!!

Do I get any credit for helping out with the imbedded project?

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 08 2004,15:53

Hello !

I tryed to lanch the embed DSL with qemu, but I cant get a correct display. It looks like the screenshots bellow. Any ideas ?
< http://img106.exs.cx/img106/3184/DSL_qemu1.png >
< http://img106.exs.cx/img106/6799/DSL_qemu2.png >

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 08 2004,16:00

Quote (nima @ Nov. 08 2004,10:53)

What does your dsl-windows.bat have in it?

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 08 2004,16:05

it contain the standard options as provided by dsl-embedded-0.8.3.zip :

Code Sample

REM Start qemu on windows.
@ECHO OFF

START qemu.exe -L . -m 128 -hda harddisk -cdrom dsl.iso -boot d -enable-audio -user-net -localtime

CLS
EXIT

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 08 2004,16:29

try fb800x600 at boot prompt

Im downloading new version and testing it out...
The "official" version released by John is a bit different from the one I had made

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 08 2004,16:34

well it does nothing much, I tryed it, it is write to do so in the readme file (with the frugal option, but it fails in the same way).
Notice that it makes a strange display beffore booting, it starts to be wired at bios time...

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 08 2004,16:43

Does it stay all messed up or does it clear up once DSL starts loading?

Im still checking on my end..going very slow on download..but I will check once I get a copy of it..did you check to make sure the .zip was good and not corrupted?

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 08 2004,17:05

Yes it's still mess at DSl load (I think the distorted image on the top left is DSL logo...)

MD5 sum is ok, I downloaded it from here : < http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/ >

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 08 2004,21:46

Wierd...1st time for everything...

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 08 2004,22:01

can you boot dsl from a cd?

Posted by Tux5 on Nov. 09 2004,12:44

Do you mean can you boot embedded DSL from CD? You probably could but DSL runs much faster when booted from CD as designed. (This is isn't to say embedded DSL isn't fantastic at what it does!)

Incidentally, I have had over 10,000 reads on tuxs.org about embedded DSL so far, hopefully this has introduced a few people to DSL! :-)

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 09 2004,14:02

yep, you can use dsl embedded from a cd.

i dont have a usb flash thingie big enough fir embed, but the cd works like a champ!

but i was asking if he could boot DSL proper from a CD.

Posted by Guest on Nov. 09 2004,15:01

I join to you. [
<snip>

--------------------------------------------------------------
<snip>

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 09 2004,15:12

Quote (kirill73 @ Nov. 09 2004,10:01)

I join to you. <snip>
--------------------------------------------------------------
<snip>

Stinkin BOT! THE SITES ABOVE FROM THE BOT HAS TROJANS DONT GO TO IT!!!!!

-edit- Wow that was alot of RED!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by John on Nov. 09 2004,16:34

Snipped the URLs and deleted the registration...

Posted by ke4nt1 on Nov. 09 2004,17:14

Thanks...

73
ke4nt

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 10 2004,09:55

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek,

Posted by nima on Nov. 10 2004,10:02

I'm going to try on another PC... I think my windows have to be reinstalled, some DLLs are corrupted...

[edit] note that I can't boot on CD, my bios has been locked by administrators to don't accept booting on other media than HDD...

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 10 2004,14:10

ok, open pc case, remove cmos battery, unplug power, wait 30secs or so, plug power back in, replace cmos battery, if you need help locating cmos battery, ask.

Posted by nima on Nov. 10 2004,15:21

I have to open the case first... needs a grinding machine...

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 10 2004,15:59

There is a reason the "administrators" dont want you messing with it...have you thought of that...perhaps if you ask them to let you they might..but you run a risk of pissing someone off when you start screwing with security bud

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 10 2004,16:32

I never said that my administrator restricted computers without reasons, I just said I can't boot on CD and thats why I'm so interested in using DSL embed. But one tryed to make me reset my bios batery, so I just answerd to tell him that my administrator was no so dumb and also secured the hardware as avery administrator should do ... :;):

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 10 2004,17:07

Can you boot from floppy??

If so then extract the DSL files from the CD and place on c:\ and then boot from floppy (unless its formatted ntfs)

To use DSL embedded you dont need to boot from CD, it opens a "virtual terminal" inside windows and you can use it there...

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by nima on Nov. 10 2004,17:12

No, I can't boot on another media than the HDD.
That's why I whant to use DSL embeded, it does not need tu reboot as it uses qemu.

My only problem is that qemu doesn't work correctly on my computer, but, it's probably due to the fact that my computer needs to be reinstalled...

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 10 2004,17:13

just go, ask nicely, take some coffee with you as a bribe and ask nicely.

Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 10 2004,18:35

If you are using a newer Dell computer, try pressing the "F12" key during the POST bootup screen.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 10 2004,20:42

or for boards running PheonixBIOS, its F8

Posted by davide on Nov. 14 2004,20:12

I don't know whether I should post elsewhere...
anyway...here is the question: does dsl embedded run on Imac OSX panther? (also..is it supposed to do?). I downloaded it, unpacked and opened a terminal..I tiped in what suggested in the readme file and..
it gives this message:

dsl-linux.sh: command not found

I run it as root. Don't know what to do. I really would like to run dsl at home..at the office I just take advantage of free time for rebooting with cd but can't install..It's hard to learn if you can't get to dsl quickly..

just wanted to know if you out theren have tried already this.

thx

davide

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 14 2004,20:30

well, the version of qemu used in dsl-embedded is x86 to x86, but i suppose you could download the version of qemu that emulated x86 hardware on ppc and make a mac version of dsl-embedded.

Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 14 2004,20:31

The DSL embedded package is supposed to run on either a MSWindows or Linux OS.

It is not supposed to run under Mac OS.

HOWEVER,

You can manually create a "DSL Embedded" for a Mac by going to the Qemu web site (use Google) and acquiring the Qemu version for the Macintosh.

Make sure that you get the version that runs a virtual IBM PC inside a real Mac computer, and NOT the version that runs a virtual MAC inside an IBM computer.

Then use the existing DSL embedded configuration setup and .iso file and you should be able to create a "DSL embedded" for a Mac.

Good Luck.

Posted by davide on Nov. 15 2004,10:26

I already downloaded tha qemu version for MAC OsX, to see if I could use a dsl .iso file. Still, I seem to remember (i did it a couple of day ago) the dialog box requires a .img file, not a .iso file..
I don't know how to create a .img out of a .iso.
is it possibile? (I suppose it is)
is there any tutorial on the net you would suggest?
thanks

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 15 2004,20:50

Quote (davide @ Nov. 15 2004,05:26)

that filename.img can be filename.iso...it doesnt have to be an image file persay

I dont have a mac to try to test this on but the prinicple is sound for sure!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 15 2004,22:24

Here is the boot command line for DSL-embedded (Windows host):

START qemu.exe -L . -m 128 -hda harddisk -cdrom dsl.iso -boot d -enable-audio -user-net -localtime

As you can see, DSL is using the "virtual CDROM" device to load up the iso file and not the "virtual hard drive" that is used for the *.img file.

so try the "-cdrom dsl.iso" command and see what happens.