03.Dec.2023
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Emulation: BBoot boot loader v0.5 now supports AmigaOne in QEMU (update)
In our Simplified installation guide for AmigaOS 4.1 under QEMU published in mid-August and written by Rene Engel (in German), the bootloader "BBoot" written by QEMU developer Balaton Zoltan was already used, which can now load the AmigaOne as well as the Pegasos 2 model in version 0.5.
Balaton Zoltan wrote: "BBoot is replacing the second level boot loader (amigaboot.of on pegasos2 and slb_v2 on amigaone) and makes booting AmigaOS on QEMU simpler and without needing a firmware ROM. Because BBoot runs without firmware it does not load files from disk but expects an initrd with the kickstart files in zip format loaded in memory and boots from that. This not only allows BBoot to remain simple but may also be more convenient to work with in an emulated environment and boot faster. The initrd should be a zip archive of all boot files within a Kickstart directory that can be created with "zip -r Kickstart.zip Kickstart/" for example. BBoot will look for Kickstart/Kicklayout file in the zip and boot the first config (LABEL) found in it. Currently BBoot takes no input and does not provide a boot menu so other than 1st config defined in Kicklayout cannot be chosen, but one could have different zip files for different configs and choose on the QEMU command line by using different Kickstart.zip.
BBoot can also configure PCI devices that is normally done by the firmware. Linux and MorphOS don't need this as they scan and configure PCI devices themselves during boot but AmigaOS relies on the firmware to do this so BBoot implements this too. While configuring PCI, BBoot prints debug messages that can be useful to check how these devices are configured, which can help in debugging PCI pass through or even when using newer graphics cards on a real PegasosII as BBoot can also patch 64 bit BARs that the Pegasos2 version of AmigaOS kernel cannot handle."
Balaton Zoltan has published a little guide on how to use BBoot. At least QEMU 8.1 is needed for the -initrd option on Pegasos 2 and QEMU 8.2 for the AmigaOne machine. (dr)
[News message: 03. Dec. 2023, 07:13] [Comments: 0]
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