Re: [cobalt-developers] raq os in vmware

[Michael Stauber <devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Matt,

> Also, didn't Cobalt (maybe pre Sun) once have a program that allowed
> developers access to various hardware platforms for testing PKG files?
> Is that still around?

I'm not sure how you do this, but I have a used RaQ3i sitting next to me for 
developement. It has two IDE connectors, an external SCSI connector and two 
NICs.

With that kind of hardware it's possible to run the following SUN/Cobalt OS'es 
on it: RaQ3, RaQ3i, RaQ4, RaQ4i, RaQ4R, Qube3 (all). At the moment I have the 
Qube3 ML Business OS on it as I plan to port a few existing RaQ3/4 PKGs over 
to the Qube3.

Doing an OS restore - and especially installing the patches after an OS 
restore - is still a pain, though. And unfortunately that's recommended 
whenever the developement of a new PKG starts. So what I do is the following:

The first time around I do an full OS restore and then install all patches. 
Then I use the "dd" command to create an image of the tree partitions and 
copy them over by NFS to my Linux fileserver.

I have a couple of HDs to go around for use in the testbox. When I need a 
fully patched vanilla RaQ4R OS then I put a blank disk as slave into the RaQ. 
Then I mount the fileserver by NFS, fetch the three RaQ4R partitions and 
shove 'em back onto the slave disk - again with the "dd" command.

It still takes time, as the average IDE throughput on the RaQ is between 16 
and 19.5 MB/sec. 

-- 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

Michael Stauber
mstauber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unix/Linux Support Engineer