Emulating the XO/Mac

VMware

See Emulating_the_XO/UsingVMware.

Parallels Desktop on Mac OS X

Bert: First, install a regular Linux in Parallels - I used Fedora Core 5. To use an OS image directly, add a second hard disk (size 512 MB) to the VM. Boot the VM, download an OS image (ending in ext3.img.bz2), then copy it to the second hard disk (hdc for me, hdb is the CD):

bzcat ...ext3.img.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc bs=1M
sync

Then shut down that Linux, and change the VM (or make another one) to boot from the second hard disk image. Start that VM - should work :) I have not yet made sound work, though, please let me know if you find out anything.

BruceB: It can be a bit easier than that, no need to load a Linux system if you don't already happen to have one. This worked for me, though it may be simplified further still.

• Launch Parallels, create a new VM (I user "other Linux"
• Set the hard drive to be 512MB, OK when it says it already exists.
• Note the Hard drive file name, for me it was:

 /Users/bruce/Library/Parallels/otherlin/otherlin.hdd

• Download the image (as bert says, ending in ext3.img.bz2) from this page:

 http://olpc.download.redhat.com/olpc/streams/development/latest/devel_ext3/

• Drop into the Apple Terminal and type: (replacing "..." with the right file name you downloaded and your username. Check to see if "otherlin.hdd" is what you are using too.)

 bzcat ~/Desktop/olpc...ext3.img.bz2 | dd of=/Users/.../Library/Parallels/otherlin/otherlin.hdd

• Re-launch Parallels and run!

Bert: Oh, so Parallel's hdd is nothing more than a plain disk image? How interesting! Thanks, that's a lot easier!

Wooky: The dd-ing worked allright under OS X, but with a caveat: both images I tried (206 and 193) were only 480MB after dd, even though they originally had 512MB. I used Parallel's image utility to resize them back to 512MB and all went fine (almost, couldn't start GUI. Guess it is something between fbdev and Parallel's video).

MartinDolphin: I managed to get this working following the shorter method suggested by BruceB - the OLPC software starts with the initial screen, I can enter my name, but can't get any further.

George: I have the same problem with MartinDolphin

ScottSwanson: To avoid the 480MB "autoshrink" when running dd in Terminal.app, try using the following (remember to explicitly enter the correct paths for your system instead of "..."):

 bzcat ...ext3.img.bz2 | dd of=...otherlin.hdd bs=1024 conv=notrunc,noerror,sync

I was informed on #Sugar that there was a known issue with the file selection dialog box where you had to type in the filename with full path by hand. The newest build (298 as I write this) obviates this need. (This addresses MartinDolphin and George's issue.)

StarKruzr: I get so far as the Sugar splash screen. Never get to type in a name, it crashes shortly after telling Grub to boot from the QEMU target.

SRiggins: Parallels Build 3188 now stores vm hard disk images in /Users/{USERNAME}/Documents/Parallels/{VMNAME}/

Virtual PC on Mac OS X (PowerPC)

Akauppi: The instructions above on preparing a 512MB boot disk, based on ...img.bz2 file apply. However, create a 1GB disk image in VPC, since it does not allow precisely 512MB.

TODO: system boots nicely, but the mouse remains unresponsive. Ideas???

John Palmieri advised:

Add this to /etc/X11/qemu-Xorg.conf and then copy qemu-Xorg.conf to Xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Startup Failure

VirtualPC 7.0.1 (041022) on a Quad G5 (PowerMac11,2) fails to boot from the LiveCD, neither as disk or from image. The following output post-bootloader was copied verbatim from the (virtual) screen:

  Booting 'OLPC Operating System SDK'

root (cd)
 Filesystem type is iso9660, using whole disk
kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro quiet root=CDLABEL=OLPCRoot_build385_CD rootfstype=iso9
660 fastboot livecd selinux=0
   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1e00, size=0x1e2474]
initrd /boot/initrd
   [Linux-initrd @ 0x1fd37000, 0x2a888d bytes]

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.














Int 14: CR2 ffffbe47  err 00000002  EIP c0427b06  CS 00000060  flags 00000047
Stack: c0745fdc 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

▪ NeoAmsterdam^Talk_Edits 23:07, 18 May 2007 (EDT)