From owner-freebsd-emulation Sun Jun 11 10:42: 9 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org Received: from overcee.netplex.com.au (peter1.corp.yahoo.com [208.48.107.4]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78C3137B79E; Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:41:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@netplex.com.au) Received: from netplex.com.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by overcee.netplex.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB611CD7; Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:41:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@netplex.com.au) X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Mike Smith , Luoqi Chen , current@FreeBSD.ORG, emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: VMware detection code in boot loader In-Reply-To: Message from "Daniel C. Sobral" of "Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:27:48 +0900." <3943AFF4.6821783E@newsguy.com> Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:41:53 -0700 From: Peter Wemm Message-Id: <20000611174153.DDB611CD7@overcee.netplex.com.au> Sender: owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: > Mike Smith wrote: > > > > > VMware intercepts the inb/outb instruction to port 0x5658 when the eax > > > register is set to a magic value, otherwise it would be handled as any > > > other ports. > > > > I think, again, that adding an i386-specific word that detects the > > presence of VMware is a perfectly sensible idea, and it should simply be > > done. > > Given the way VMware works, I'd have nothing against making it a FICL > words, except... > > ...VMware is a port. For some reason, I dislike the idea of having > support targetted at exclusively one specific port. Though we have > features added specifically to deal with certain ports, they were all > more generic features. > > So, I see two alternatives here: > > 1) Add the Forth words that allow execution of assembler code (CODE > ;CODE), and hex-compile the code (as having a whole assembler around is > unreasonable). This enables similar problems to be solved without having > to change loader(8). > > 2) Add the VMware detecting to FICL, as originally suggested. > > While I have reservations about the latter, I'm not objecting to it. If > you, Luoqi, prefer to go that way, go ahead. Why make #2 vmware specific? Why not set $emulation to native,vmware,bochs, etc. This is applicable to any platform that may have some sort of emulator. Putting it in an environment variable has the advantage of having it passed through to the kernel environment too, so you might be able to use it in /etc/rc* as well. Cheers, -Peter -- Peter Wemm - peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com; peter@netplex.com.au "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-emulation" in the body of the message