Getting QEMU to work

About Qemu-system-ppc, a PPC Mac emulator for Windows, macOS and Linux that can run Mac OS 9.0 up to Mac OS X 10.5

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danco
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Getting QEMU to work

Post by danco »

So I have just started playing with QEMU (5.1-OSX-01-10-2020), trying to get it to run an early OS X version. MY OS is 10.15.7

I modified the qemu.command file, just by renaming the iso and img files but leaving everything else unchanged..
When I run the command, the qemu-sysrem-ppc window opens but just reports

Welcome to OpenBIOS (...)
Trying cd:,\\:tbxi...
No valid state has been set by load or init program


and it sticks there.


Meanwhile the Terminal window shows

/Users/danco/Installers/Qemu-5.1-OSX-01-10-2020/\ revised.command ; exit;
2020-11-18 19:07:32.191 qemu-system-ppc[41422:17559562] ApplePersistence=NO
UpdateRecents: about to call HIS_XPC_GetApplicationPolicyForURLs with seed 1513566511
UpdateRecents: received results from HIS_XPC_GetApplicationPolicyForURLs
UpdateRecents: ignoring results because menu isn't open

So what might I need to alter to get it to work?
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Cat_7
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Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by Cat_7 »

Hi,

Please paste your command line in your answer.
I believe your error is caused by either providing a non-bootable cd image or not setting the type of the medium correctly.

Best,
Cat_7
danco
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Posts: 36
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:33 pm

Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by danco »

Seems quite likely. My qemu.command script is

#!/bin/bash
cd "$(dirname "$0")"

./qemu-system-ppc \
-L pc-bios -m 256 -M mac99 -boot d \
-drive file=MacOSXinstall.iso,format=raw,media=cdrom \
-drive file=MacOSX.img,format=raw,media=disk


The MacOSXinstall disk was created in the following way, which might quite well be wrong

Start with a Mac OS install disk with extension .dmg. As I wasn't sure if I could use this or needed a disk with .iso extension I used Disk Utility to convert the disk to cdr, format as DVD/CD master, and then changed the extension from .cdr to .iso

By the way, what are the best versions of OS X to use?
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Cat_7
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Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by Cat_7 »

I see,

Your command line is sane. But it might be the conversion from dmg to cdr/iso went wrong. Did you convert the whole dmg or the partition containing OSX?
Perhaps the original dmg would work. Qemu supports the dmg format (although I do not know whether it supports compressed ones).

-drive file=MacOSXinstall.dmg,format=dmg,media=cdrom \

In some cases even changing the media type from cdrom to disk might work. In that case you might need to add ,index=0 to the first disk and ,index=1 to the second disk and remove the -boot d entry.

The OSX versions supported well are 10.0/10.1. These use -M mac99 which gives them adb bus mouse/keyboard.
Also well supported are 10.3/10.4. These use -M mac99,via=pmu which provides usb mouse/keyboard.
10.2 has graphical problems, and 10.5 might really be too slow.

Best,
cat_7
danco
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Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:33 pm

Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by danco »

I had some difficulties, but that looks as if it will work. I didn't have time to do more than check that the install disk loads.
danco
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Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by danco »

OK, I've got it working now. I used 10.4. I might try other versions to see if they are faster to load.

Should Safari work? (And other internet programs.) I tried, and it just seemed to sit there, but maybe it was just being extremely slow.
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Cat_7
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Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by Cat_7 »

Good.

Check the netwerk settings. The network card should have received an ip address of 10.0.2.15.
If so, the network is functional. Safari can be slow, and will not connect to sites requiring modern encryption methods.

Best,
Cat_7
danco
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Posts: 36
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Re: Getting QEMU to work

Post by danco »

Thank you. Yes, I had discovered that Safari is slow and does not connect to some sites. Now that VMWare Fusion is free, I am more likely to use that and a more modern version of OS X for my emulation/virtualisation needs. But it's still niece to be able to emulate older versions should I want to, and it was fun - though also frustrating - getting things to work.

I'm not quite sure what the situation is with the DNS server and QEMU under Catalina. But anyway, Safari did not work at all until I entered the address of a DNS server, it didn't appear just to pick sanything up from the Catalina settings
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