Bela Lubkin wrote:
> Boyd Lynn Gerber, replying to Nico Kadel-Garcia:
>
> Nico>> I've been dealing with VMware to run SCO OpenServer 5.0.6 for
> Nico>> legacy software, and for various reasons it's making me unhappy.
>
> Don't you mean you are using "VMware" to run "SCO"?
>
> When you identify the virtualization platform only by the company name
> you are committing the same error that so many comp.unix.sco.misc users
> have been called on in the past. The company is not the product.

Well, I've been using both VMware Workstation 6 and VMWare ESX 3.5. VMware
Workstation 6 supports IDE emulation, VMware ESX 3.5 does not. Dang it! It
makes installing on ESX much more painful than on Workstation.

> Nico>> See, installing Xen 5.0.6 on VMware seems to require using the
> Nico>> 5.0.7 boot floppy image and manually installing BusLogic SCSI
> Nico>> adapter drivers. But the Xen setup tools don't include options
> Nico>> for setting this up from the command line, and I'm short of time
> Nico>> to take my VMWare server down and experiment.
>
> I think you mean "SCO [OpenServer] 5.0.6" the first time the word "Xen"
> appears in the above lines.
>
> Here is where the choice of VMware virtualization platform makes a big
> difference. VMware's _hosted_ platforms (VMware Server, Workstation,
> Player, ACE, and Fusion) support the presentation of emulated IDE disks
> to the guest OS. VMware ESX does not; it supports only emulated SCSI
> disks (on emulated BusLogic BT-958 and LSI Logic 53c1030 HBAs).


> No release of OSR5 has LSI 1030 drivers in its boot image. They do have
> BusLogic drivers, but the build-in "blc" driver has a bug which prevents
> it from operating the VMware emulated adapter. You end up having to use
> a BTLD in both cases (either to supply the 1030 driver or to replace the
> BusLogic driver with a debugged version).

Which is well-described in AP Lawrence's blog about the issues.

> You can avoid these issues on the hosted platforms by using IDE disk
> emulation.
>
> Boyd> What problems are you having? Mine seems to run really well
> Boyd> I am using SATA disks.
>
> Here I think you are talking about the physical disks. This is
> irrelevant as long as they work with your virtualization platform.

That wasn't me. That was Boyd.

> Boyd> I have this in my osr507.vmx file.
>
> Boyd> ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
> Boyd> ide0:0.fileName = "osr507.vmdk"
>
> This shows an emulated IDE disk, therefore you are apparently using one
> of the hosted products. IDE is definitely the easiest choice if you are
> able to take it.
>
> I keep hoping that ESX will eventually add support for IDE disk
> emulation. Then all the pain of installing OSR5 with BTLDs could be
> avoided. This would also benefit various other guest OSes.
>
>> Bela<

I'm inclined to agree. But what I was really looking for, was people emulating
OpenServer under *Xen* rather than under VMware. I suspect it's possible
using the BusLogic SCSI installation technique, but the RHEL based VMWare
management tools don't have built-in facilities for enable floppy and CD
access or booting. It's pesky!