So, I've been toying with VirtualBox (running under macOS) and NetBSD
for quite some years now, but never with really good success.
I've just upgraded VirtualBox to 7.2.16, but some bad/strange behaviours
persist.
So far I'm still trying to use it in BIOS mode. I guess I should try a
UEFI install, but not today.
First off I often get repeated key presses on the console (making it
impossible to login there -- one key press repeats up to dozens of
times). It seems kind of random -- I can't find what's triggering it (I
thought it was if I pressed <enter> to skip the boot countdown, but
that's not it). It only happens at the login prompt, not in the
bootloader.
I've also tried selecting a high-resolution display with a "vesa 0x145"
command (for 1280x1024x32). This seems to work if done manually, but
leads to wscons being broken (more below). It doesn't seem to work at
all if put (anywhere) in the /boot.cfg file.
I've probably also mentioned that so far I've been unable to get a
NetBSD VirtualBox VM to maintain anything even close to accurate time,
even with ntpd running. Up for 15 minutes and it's already almost 3m
behind!
ntpq> peers
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==============================================================================
xenful.local 10.0.1.197 2 u 9 64 377 0.380 +174455 64436.1
xentastic.local 192.75.191.6 3 u 5 64 377 0.528 +175312 64608.5
(10.0.1.197 is a local stratum-1 GPS-based server)
I used to use Parallels (on macOS, aka OSX in the day), but the
licensing got too expensive and restrictive for me to justify just for
testing and playing with other systems. It worked great with NetBSD
though! Far better than VB, especially at the time.
I now use UTM more often, more below.
As for the vesa vs. wscons problem:
Here's what I see related in kernel output:
genfb0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0: VMware Virtual SVGA II (rev. 0x00)
genfb0: framebuffer at 0xe0000000, size 1280x1024, depth 32, stride 5120
wsdisplay0 at genfb0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0
wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
drm at genfb0 not configured
wsdisplay0: screen 7 added (default, vt100 emulation)
And here's what /etc/rc.d/wscons has to say:
[running /etc/rc.d/wscons]
wsconscfg: screen 0 is already configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
Keyboard encoding -> us.swapctrlcaps
ttyE1: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE1: Device not configured
ttyE2: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE2: Device not configured
ttyE3: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE3: Device not configured
ttyE4: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE4: Device not configured
ttyE5: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE5: Device not configured
Somehow the getty processes for ttyE[1-6] run, but trying to switch to
any other virtual console doesn't work.
Note that choosing a different display resolution in UTM, (I'm using
UEFI there, so with the "gop" bootloader command), causes the same
wscons failures as in VB. (This is with 11.99.4 from late last year, I
have not yet tried the latest -current.)
Back to UTM (which is a QEMU front-end) for me. Better, but broken in
different ways. X works there, but with stupidly limited resolutions
and I haven't managed to run it full-screen with native resolution yet.
--
Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost>
Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost>
Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost> Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>
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