[rescue] Emulators

[Lionel Peterson]

> On May 13, 2014, at 2:57 PM, David Brownlee <abs at absd.org> wrote:
>
> On 13 May 2014 18:29, Earl Baugh <earl at baugh.org> wrote:
>>>
>> If I could netboot from it,  I'd play :-)
>> But of course, I'd need a local copy for that... it has to be on the same
>> subnet.
>
> "Tell me more..." :)
> What OS/hardware combinations would you want to netboot from it, and would
> you just want to netboot install ramdisk type setups or full remote disk
> filesystems?
>
> I know someone put together an x86 CD/USB image to provide an turnkey
> install server for Cobalt NetBSD on mips based Qube/Raq boxes, so there is
> definitely prior art.

Didn't someone else mention an SGI net-install appliance VM?

>> Still sounds like a great idea!  There is a Mac emulator out there as
>> well..
>
> Are we tending towards the lean single use box, or the kitchen sink
> approach? Given the relative size of the emulators and modern disk space the
latter make more sense.

Well, let's think this through - an 'all-in-one' box would have tons and tons
of CDs and DVDs worth of software bundled inside it (how big is a complete
IRIX, VMS, Solaris, etc. Set of install images, accounting for multiple
hardware platforms - there are what, 3-4 distinct SPARC chip families + x86
for Solaris, Alpha + VAX for VMS, a couple platforms for IRIX (I think),
etc.)?

I think stand-alone appliances based around a common installer base image
might be more manageable. Something along the lines of the turnkeylinux.com
suite of appliances where there is a base image, then each appliance starts
with that one image and is customized to support a single application.

Lionel