Trying to install Guix with Qemu

Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Nate Bargmann]

I've just started playing with Guix and would like to do so using Qemu
rather than bare metal.  As the GNU system is only available for Guix
0.7 as a USB drive image, this has posed a bit of a vexing problem to
me.  I am a Qemu novice (I usually use Virtual Box) but I did get it to
boot the USB image file and also was able to mount a created qcow2 disk
image for it.  That is where I seem to have run aground.

It seems that Qemu when passed the -usb option makes that image /dev/sda
and the image file I intend to install to must be given with the -hdb
option.  When I edited /mnt/etc/config.scm I assumed the disk image
would be /dev/sda but that seems to have resulted in at least Grub
(maybe more packages) being installed into the USB image.  Clearly, this
isn't what I want.  Do I specify /dev/sdb in config.scm and then just
boot it as -hdb in the future?

I apologize if this is more of a Qemu question as I didn't see anything
in the Qemu documentation that steered me toward reversing its drive
assignments.  Hopefully, I'm not the only person interested in exploring
the GNU system/Guix in a virtual machine, am I?

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Ludovic Courtès]

Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us> skribis:

> I've just started playing with Guix and would like to do so using Qemu
> rather than bare metal.  As the GNU system is only available for Guix
> 0.7 as a USB drive image, this has posed a bit of a vexing problem to
> me.  I am a Qemu novice (I usually use Virtual Box) but I did get it to
> boot the USB image file and also was able to mount a created qcow2 disk
> image for it.  That is where I seem to have run aground.

FWIW a recipe to install the system in a VM was posted at
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-09/msg00149.html>
(also read subsequent messages for troubleshooting.)

> It seems that Qemu when passed the -usb option makes that image /dev/sda
> and the image file I intend to install to must be given with the -hdb
> option.  When I edited /mnt/etc/config.scm I assumed the disk image
> would be /dev/sda but that seems to have resulted in at least Grub
> (maybe more packages) being installed into the USB image.  Clearly, this
> isn't what I want.  Do I specify /dev/sdb in config.scm and then just
> boot it as -hdb in the future?

The best thing to do is to assign a label to that partition, and then
refer to that label in config.scm, as noted under “Preparing for
Installation” at
<http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/System-Installation.html>.

> I apologize if this is more of a Qemu question as I didn't see anything
> in the Qemu documentation that steered me toward reversing its drive
> assignments.  Hopefully, I'm not the only person interested in exploring
> the GNU system/Guix in a virtual machine, am I?

It’s even better on the metal.  ;-)

HTH,
Ludo’.

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2014 20 Sep 15:36 -0500, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> FWIW a recipe to install the system in a VM was posted at
> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-09/msg00149.html>
> (also read subsequent messages for troubleshooting.)

Ahhh, thanks.  I will check that out.

> The best thing to do is to assign a label to that partition, and then
> refer to that label in config.scm, as noted under “Preparing for
> Installation” at
> <http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/System-Installation.html>.

Thanks for that clue as well.  I recall that I did not assign a label
when I partitioned the VM image.  That will probably help.

> It’s even better on the metal.  ;-)

I'll have to give that a try.  Certainly, this interests me as it's good
to see a GNU system coming together.

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2014 20 Sep 15:36 -0500, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> FWIW a recipe to install the system in a VM was posted at
> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-09/msg00149.html>
> (also read subsequent messages for troubleshooting.)

Trying the method shown in the referenced thread, except for having a
separate swap image, left me with a very slow system to boot.  It took
about two minutes for the Grub menu to appear and then I gave up after
several minutes of no indication that the kernel would ever start.  I
suspect the VM had device contention between competing /dev/sda devices.

I went back to the way I had originally had success booting the USB
image file and now my target hard disk is /dev/sdb1.  Looking at the SCM
template in section 6.1.4 of the installation manual, I see the function
template:

         (bootloader (grub-configuration (device "/dev/sdX")))

Is it possible to specify a UUID for the device here?  That would be
unambiguous as when the new installation is started, it should be
/dev/sda but is presently /dev/sdb.  Am I over thinking this?

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Ludovic Courtès]

Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us> skribis:

> * On 2014 20 Sep 15:36 -0500, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> FWIW a recipe to install the system in a VM was posted at
>> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-09/msg00149.html>
>> (also read subsequent messages for troubleshooting.)
>
> Trying the method shown in the referenced thread, except for having a
> separate swap image, left me with a very slow system to boot.  It took
> about two minutes for the Grub menu to appear and then I gave up after
> several minutes of no indication that the kernel would ever start.  I
> suspect the VM had device contention between competing /dev/sda devices.

This is weird, there’s no reason why it would be slower than whatever
else you did before.  Are you running QEMU with ‘-enable-kvm’?

> I went back to the way I had originally had success booting the USB
> image file and now my target hard disk is /dev/sdb1.  Looking at the SCM
> template in section 6.1.4 of the installation manual, I see the function
> template:
>
>          (bootloader (grub-configuration (device "/dev/sdX")))
>
> Is it possible to specify a UUID for the device here?

This device name is passed directly to ‘grub-install’.  If that command
supports UUIDs, that would work.  I suspect it really needs a /dev name,
though (info "(grub) Invoking grub-install"):

       grub-install INSTALL_DEVICE

     The device name INSTALL_DEVICE is an OS device name or a GRUB device
  name.

Now, this device name just needs to be correct at the time GRUB is
installed; it doesn’t matter afterwards.

Ludo’.

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2014 21 Sep 13:56 -0500, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> This is weird, there’s no reason why it would be slower than whatever
> else you did before.  Are you running QEMU with ‘-enable-kvm’?

Yes.  The only difference that I could really see is that I chose to
create my image in the qcow2 format rather than raw.  Here is what I
used to do the installation:

qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 512 -hdb Guix.qcow2 -usb ~/tmp/gnu-usb-install-0.7.i686

This runs quickly enough, although a far cry from a native installation.

> This device name is passed directly to ‘grub-install’.  If that command
> supports UUIDs, that would work.  I suspect it really needs a /dev name,
> though (info "(grub) Invoking grub-install"):
> 
>        grub-install INSTALL_DEVICE
> 
>      The device name INSTALL_DEVICE is an OS device name or a GRUB device
>   name.

Looking in the Grub info documentation on my Debian system confirms the
above and is silent on the issue of UUID.

> Now, this device name just needs to be correct at the time GRUB is
> installed; it doesn’t matter afterwards.

Thanks very much for that clue.  I ran the installation with grub set to
install to /dev/sdb and it happily booted into the hard disk image.  Now
my task is to read the manual and get familiar with Guix.

Thanks!

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Ernesto Celis]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2014, Nate Bargmann wrote:

> Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 22:43:31
> From: Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us>
> To: guix-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Trying to install Guix with Qemu
> 
> I've just started playing with Guix and would like to do so using Qemu
> rather than bare metal.  As the GNU system is only available for Guix
> 0.7 as a USB drive image, this has posed a bit of a vexing problem to
> me.  I am a Qemu novice (I usually use Virtual Box) but I did get it to
> boot the USB image file and also was able to mount a created qcow2 disk
> image for it.  That is where I seem to have run aground.

I know this thread is about qemu, but as you said you are a VitrualBox
user, it may be interesting to you.

Last weekend I was able to install Guix 0.7 on virtualBox with the USB
image provided by Guix developers. I put my notes on gitorious.

https://gitorious.org/ecelis-guix/hackathon

Check the Changelog file for some problems.

> 
> It seems that Qemu when passed the -usb option makes that image /dev/sda
> and the image file I intend to install to must be given with the -hdb
> option.  When I edited /mnt/etc/config.scm I assumed the disk image
> would be /dev/sda but that seems to have resulted in at least Grub
> (maybe more packages) being installed into the USB image.  Clearly, this
> isn't what I want.  Do I specify /dev/sdb in config.scm and then just
> boot it as -hdb in the future?
> 
> I apologize if this is more of a Qemu question as I didn't see anything
> in the Qemu documentation that steered me toward reversing its drive
> assignments.  Hopefully, I'm not the only person interested in exploring
> the GNU system/Guix in a virtual machine, am I?
> 
> - Nate
> 
> 

-- 
Ernesto Celis de la Fuente
SDF Public Access UNIX System

C*Net 1-333-1106
+1 206-299-2120 ext.1106
http://ecelis.sdf.org
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/ecelis

Installing Guix with VirtualBox

[Ludovic Courtès]

Ernesto Celis <ecelis@sdf.org> skribis:

> I know this thread is about qemu, but as you said you are a VitrualBox
> user, it may be interesting to you.
>
> Last weekend I was able to install Guix 0.7 on virtualBox with the USB
> image provided by Guix developers. I put my notes on gitorious.
>
> https://gitorious.org/ecelis-guix/hackathon

Thanks for the note, this will be helpful for others.

Ludo’.

Re: Installing Guix with VirtualBox

[白熊]

>Ernesto Celis <ecelis@sdf.org> skribis:
>
>> Last weekend I was able to install Guix 0.7 on virtualBox with the
>USB
>> image provided by Guix developers. I put my notes on gitorious.
>>
>> https://gitorious.org/ecelis-guix/hackathon

Ernesto: 

How did you configure network in the Virtualbox machine. 

I have it set: Attached to NAT, Adapter type PCnet-FAST III (Am79C973)

But then on:

dhclient eth0

it fails: 

SIOCSIFADDR: No such device 
eth0: unknown interface: No such device 
eth0: unknown interface: No such device 

--
白熊

Re: Installing Guix with VirtualBox

[白熊]

Ernesto Celis <ecelis@sdf.org> skribis:

 Last weekend I was able to install Guix 0.7 on virtualBox with the
USB
 image provided by Guix developers. I put my notes on gitorious.

 https://gitorious.org/ecelis-guix/hackathon

Ernesto: 

How did you configure network in the Virtualbox machine. 

I have it set: Attached to NAT, Adapter type PCnet-FAST III (Am79C973)

But then on:

dhclient eth0

it fails: 

SIOCSIFADDR: No such device 
eth0: unknown interface: No such device 
eth0: unknown interface: No such device 

--
白熊

Re: Installing Guix with VirtualBox

[David Thompson]

白熊 <guix-devel_gnu.org@sumou.com> writes:

> How did you configure network in the Virtualbox machine. 
>
> I have it set: Attached to NAT, Adapter type PCnet-FAST III (Am79C973)
>
> But then on:
>
> dhclient eth0
>
> it fails: 
>
> SIOCSIFADDR: No such device 
> eth0: unknown interface: No such device 
> eth0: unknown interface: No such device 

Check the output of 'ifconfig -a' to see what the device name is.  On my
machine, it was 'enp5s0', not 'eth0'.

Hope this helps.

-- 
David Thompson
Web Developer - Free Software Foundation - http://fsf.org
GPG Key: 0FF1D807
Support the FSF: https://fsf.org/donate

Re: Installing Guix with VirtualBox

[白熊]

On 2014年11月22日 18:27:51 GMT+03:00, David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> wrote:
>Check the output of 'ifconfig -a' to see what the device name is.  On
>my
>machine, it was 'enp5s0', not 'eth0'.

Thanks for the tip, that helped, it was also named differently in my case. 
--
白熊

Re: Trying to install Guix with Qemu

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2014 30 Sep 01:59 -0500, Ernesto Celis wrote:
> I know this thread is about qemu, but as you said you are a VitrualBox
> user, it may be interesting to you.
> 
> Last weekend I was able to install Guix 0.7 on virtualBox with the USB
> image provided by Guix developers. I put my notes on gitorious.
> 
> https://gitorious.org/ecelis-guix/hackathon
> 
> Check the Changelog file for some problems.

Nice work, Ernesto.

I actually have a larger hard drive on order for my laptop so I can try
the GNU System w/Guix on bare metal.  There will be some issues such as
the Intel wireless hardware, but I also have an Atheros based USB
adapter from Think Penguin I can try.  If nothing else I'll have far
more drive space for VM disks in the Debian partition.  :-)

Also, your instructions for installing Guix on Slackware is interesting
to me.  With Debian moving to systemd, I am looking back at Slackware
and now GNU should systemd become intolerable.  As Slackware has a
rudimentary concept of package management, Guix seems like a good fit.
At this time this is all a fun experiment for me.

Thanks!

- Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us