Hi, I’m new here and new with QNX, and just had a couple of questions/comments regarding QNX4 and VMware.
I’ve been thinking of trying out VMware, and I wanted to install QNX4 on it. I’ve heard that people have been able to install QNX4 on VMware, and I was wondering how it performs. I know QNX is a RTOS so I don’t see how a RTOS installed on a Virtual Machine can still be Real Time. Or perhaps it isn’t. Can someone please clarify?
Thanks!
the.Jade
Indeed you loose Real-time capability, but it makes a great development environment.
As for performance I find that with QNX4 the feeling is the OS is half the speed as running natively. Operation that don’t do IO are very close to native speed.
Personnaly I’m willing to live with drop in performance given all the advantages !!!
Here is the update to vmtools.
Unfortunately, there is no documentation there.
How to use vmwared on QNX4 properly?
UPDATE:
Original site is down, here is a mirror: openqnx.com/downloads/projects/
Just run the executable as root in the background:
And that’s it. It will sync your clock with the host about once per minute and try to keep the clipboards between photon and the host in sync - I say try because I am polling both the photon and host clipboard about once every 3 seconds, so you could copy something in QNX and try to paste it before I have copied it.
Rick…
Hm-m…
I did try exactly that way, but vmtoold does not show in the sin’s list.
I did it from the command line as root, not from /etc/config/sysinit.$NODE.
What else should I try?
Tony.
PS Why the VMware itself says I’ve not installed vmtools - it’s because the package is not their’s?
Well, assuming you renamed it and placed it somewhere on your path, that should work.
Try just running it in the forground of a root shell:
If you didn’t rename it, and it is in the current directory:
If it returns, there is something wrong since it goes into a infinite loop. If it thinks it is not running un a vmware environment, it will exit and tell you that.
Other than that, you have the source, run it under the debugger and tell me what it says.
Rick…
Well, actually, /usr/bin/vmtoold is a symlink to /usr/bin/vmtoold.qnx4…
It returns immediatelly without a word.
I’ll try to run it under wd.
PS I thought vmtool is a client part of vmtoold server… Because of the *d in the name.
What vmtool is for if vmtoold is both syncronizing the clocks and handles the clipboard?
Should I keep setvmdate script?
vmtool is just a command line utility to access the features available for the api. I forgot to run usemsg before I archived up the executables, but you can look at the top of the source to see the usage - or do this:
The intent of vmtoold is to just run in the background (thus the ‘d’) and provide time and clipboard services.
I suspect you will not need the setvmdate script since vmtoold will keep your clock syncronized for you.
I am going to go check my archive in case I screwed something up with the qnx4 build and you are the first to test it…
Rick…
OK, please do.
My details:
VMware Workstation v4.5.2 b8848, QNX v4.25G + Security patch.
Looks fine here… You can of course compile your own version just in case. The command line is in a comment near the top of the source of vmtoold.c.
Rick…
Yo!
Seems, it stays in the process list only if started from within Photon’s console window!
I did not expect this…
Yes, it does syncronize the clocks here too.
Did not try to use the clipboard yet.
Will it ever be possible to automagically catch|release the mouse and the keyborad if the mouse pointer is about to cross the vmware window’s boundary?
I guess I should mention that, of course, Photon needs to be running. It needs to talk to Photon to cut/paste from your clipboard.
As for the mouse/keyboard, I don’t know. The api I am using doesn’t appear to make it obvious how to do that. In particular, I suppose I could catch the boundry conditions in photon, but I am not sure how it would work from the windows side.
Rick…
I’ve put /usr/bin/vmtoold & into ~/.photon/phapps and made that file executable.
Works fine.
Thank you, rick!
Hope to see more updates soon.
PS
Pardon my ignorance, where in QNX4 can I find a clipboard? I’m used to windoze’s Ctrl-C|Ctrl-V. How do I use copy/paste in QNX4?
Depends on the app. Certainly in the pterm, it is Ctrl-Alt [XCV] - or from the properties menu.
Rick…
Hm-m…
Neither Ctrl-Alt-V nor Ctrl-Alt-Ins paste the clipboard’s content to the pterm’s command line.
I doubly re-checked that there is (on windoze side) some data in the clipboard, but nothing appeared in the virtual machine. How does a three-seconds delay affect the copy-pasting?
Found your v0.4 update!
Gone testing…
Heh… I was just about to comment on this thread about it…
Rick…
Coursor grab|ungrab works!
I wish it was not only under Photon…
Mostly I work in mqc.
You have the source, have fun!
Rick…
2 rick
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