Bochs (x86 emulator) on VGA Zaurus? Anyone? Options

[TonyOlsen]

Has anyone tried to run Bochs (Intel x86 IBM PC emulator) on a VGA Zaurus? Did it work?

If it did, how did you set it up? I read the directions and it's a bit greek to me. Can anyone help?

[padishah_emperor]

(wind blowing.... tumbleweed rolling...)

Sorry Tony, we're out of luck, surely one of those seasoned 'porters' wants to try, come on...

I think I could do it, I would need SDL dev libs and a good dose of patience. Someone must have a full cross-dev setup to try?

Could someone give dosbox a go?

[TonyOlsen]

(wind blowing.... tumbleweed rolling...)  

Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! LOL!

Ahm' the sheriff of this here' ghost town.

[padishah_emperor]

We're on a roll tonight ;-)

[Foxdie]

Wow Tony, you sure love your polls

I would like to try it but I haven't had the time. I think it'd be amusing to try Windows 98

[TonyOlsen]

Yes, I LOVE the polls! I think it's cool how they can offer perspective in the discussion. For example, here, it appears that noone has ever gotten Bochs working on their Zaurus. ...AND, which is very surprising, over half of the people out there don't really care about having an x86 emulator on their Zaurus. I guess they don't see any value in being able to run applications where the source code isn't available.

Maybe someday...

[Zazz]

Considering the speed difference between bochs and qemu it seems fairly safe to say that bochs is quickly approaching obsolescence.

[TonyOlsen]

qemu? I've never heard of it... but you've gotten my attention! tell me more!!

I assume qemu is another x86 emulator. Is there a port for the Zaurus? Is it fully graphics compatible? Can it run Win98SE? Can it run in VGA (640x480) mode?

Cool! Thanks!

[Zazz]

See this thread. Full PC emulation is not yet supported for the Z. It may or may not happen in a couple of months. If it does it will be much more usable than bochs.

[TonyOlsen]

I didn't get a link in the last post...

oh.. so it won't run Windows98 and graphical games?

Is there any x86 emulator for Zaurus that works all the way?

[raduga]

I didn't get a link in the last post...

oh.. so it won't run Windows98 and graphical games?  :(

Is there any x86 emulator for Zaurus that works all the way?

qemu currently only runs "user mode" applications; that is, i386 linux binaries. It should be enough to run WINE presumably, and some windows applications under there; but I fear it may be unbearably slow. Graphics heavy games will most likely not be playable through that route.

With some (significant?) extra arm support, qemu may be able to run in system mode on the Z, meaning you'd have a fully emulated i386 machine. Probably quite slow, but maybe useable.

Bochs has apparently been built and run on 5500s, so it should work
on C7xx Zaurii, but users report that its extremely (barely useable) slow for that.

Fortunately, http://dosbox.sourceforge.net works, if your major interest is DOS games (Or Windows 3.1)

Lord Davon has built the latest stable and CVS in http://zaurus.spy.org/feeds/davonz/
you'll need pdaxrom and a few extra libraries.

DOS games run at approximately a fast 286 to slow 386 speed;
if the games are old enough, that should be fine. Qemu is reputed to be more efficient, but isn't all there yet, for most purposes.

[TonyOlsen]

I can't seem to find the Zaurus IPK for DOSBox. Do you have a link, or do you have the IPK you could post here?

Thanks in advance!

[TonyOlsen]

I'm also looking for the Qemu Zaurus IPK... both of the applications I want to run (WarCraft II and an old Ascii-based reader program) are old enough that they will probably work. I looked at DosBox and it says it actually works with WarCraft2 (It's cool that they acutally have a list of applications and how well they run. ).

Does anyone have the URL for the Qeme Zaurus IPK?

thanks!

[raduga]

there are a couple of tarballs with Dosbox in the zaurus.spy.org feeds I mentioned. You don't need to install as an ipk.

Keep in mind that you will probably not get performance better than
286 / slow 386 on a Zaurus, with Dosbox. Qemu may do better - when/if it can run full machine emulation.

Zazz has put a tarball of his qemu build on http://zaurus.zapto.org/zazz/qemu/
and read the README

nobody has yet made an ipk, as qemu is barely stable enough this far in.

[raduga]

I looked at DosBox and it says it actually works with WarCraft2 (It's cool that they acutally have a list of applications and how well they run. ).

Keep in mind that the applications list is based on apps tested against an i386 dosbox system, so things will likely run much slower on the Z. Mouse support on the Z is sketchy - mouse heavy games are pretty frustrating, IMO [there may be a fix for this; I don't think it should be too difficult]