From: minyard@crchh453.bnr.ca (Corey Minyard) Subject: Re: VM386? Possible? Date: 1 Sep 1992 22:49:38 GMT
In article <1992Sep1.212303.2509@athena.mit.edu>, tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) writes:
|> From: lm@slovax.Eng.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy)
|> Date: 1 Sep 1992 17:08:52 GMT
|> Reply-To: lm@sun.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
|>
|> Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to run a 386 program on a
|> virtual 386 on a real 386? The reason I ask is this: aren't a lot
|> of dos programs running in 386 mode? So even if you got VM86 working
|> and got a dos emulator running, wouldn't things like windows apps
|> not run at all? Or is everything still running as an 8086?
|>
.
.
.
|>
|> It's true that you won't be able to run Windows on a VM86 emulator ---
|> but that's because it's trying to be an *operating system*, and Linux has
|> control over all of the page tables, interrupt descriptor tables, etc.,
|> and it cannot reliquish them over to Windows without completely messing
|> up Linux.
|>
|> But for the majority of the PC *applications*, this shouldn't be a
|> concern; they tend to be written using only 8086 code.
|>
|> - Ted
Well, the majority of the applications my wife uses are ms-windows. She
sure hates having to reboot the machine to go between linux and windows.
It should be technically feasible to have a "windows" emulator under
linux (using X for its display!). The screen stuff shouldn't be too
difficult, just tedious. The hard stuff would be memory handling and
running things in 286 protected mode.
If anyone wants to do this, I will volunteer as a beta tester!
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Corey Minyard