Hello AROS fans,
I am not sure if anyone has already tried this but I have managed to make AROS or ICAROS 1.2 work just perfect under QEMU. Well QEMU with QEMU Manager 6.0 to be exact.
I have used VirtualBox and VMWare (Player, Workstation, Server) on an old laptop with P4 2.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, Intel Graphics Extreme 852/855 w/ 64MB and Windows XP on it. I tried to run AROS/ICAROS 1.x natively but the video card just doesn't want to hear it to work not even in VESA mode. The highest resolution I can get out if it, is 640x480 and that in today standards is like working with a DOS screen. There are no drivers and I don't foresee them coming anytime soon. So I decided to use AROS in a virtual way.
I tried Virtual Box because I have heard many positive things about it. It works great if the computer has virtualization support built in but since my laptop’s BIOS has no Virtualization support, the VMs run too slow for my taste.
I tried VMWare and although it is a bit faster than Virtual Box, it still lacks support for audio drivers, which is quite annoying when you play games or audio applications, etc.
So I wanted to give QEMU one more shot but I wasn’t going to wrestle with obscure command lines and such. I looked on the web for a GUI to manage QEMU and I found a nifty cool application called QEMU Manager 6.0. The developer’s web site seems to be down at the moment but he is working on bring it up online soon and continue development. As an alternative I have uploaded the setup files on box.nethttp://www.box.net/shared/zl4p9jfp7z
The QEMU Manager 6.0 installs the GUI with the QEMU core files and the KQEMU accelerator part. I created a VM by following a very easy wizard, mounted the ICAROS .iso file and I was able to boot ICAROS just fine. Installed it on a VM of 8 GB with no problems and guess what? I have AUDIO, NETWORKING, and VIDEO (VESA) working great. The speed is awesome but you need to turn on the acceleration in the settings. I haven’t tried the USB stack but I will try soon.
I will take some screenshots soon for you to see..
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This is the Virtual Machine Hardware Configuration:
(You can see it better from the gallery)
This is the advanced screen for advanced stuff :-). Well all I did in here was to turn on full acceleration support.
I added the 800x600x32 mode because the laptop I used it on only had max resolution of 1024x768
Tadaaaa!!! ICAROS 1.2 Running with no problems.
Full network support and OWB displaying Google.com:
Here are the AHI sound settings. You can see that the Unit 0 has AC97 available. Sounds works beautifully with no problems,
I know you can't hear it but take my word for it or try it yourself.
