Barebones Bochs Display Error

[emsworth]

I'm new to OSDev, and I have found the information on this site to be very helpful - so thanks! I have, however, run into a problem with running bochs on my system for the barebones tutorial. My setup is:

ubuntu server 10.04 running on VMWare ESXi hypervisor
Bochs 2.5.1 compiled from source
SDL-1.2.15 compiled from source

bochsrc.txt:

Code: Select all

boot: floppy
floppya: 1_44="floppy.img", status=inserted
log: bochs-log.txt
display_library: sdl
vgaromimage: file=/usr/local/share/bochs/VGABIOS-lgpl-latest
romimage: file=/usr/local/share/bochs/BIOS-bochs-latest

I get the following error when I start up bochs:

Bochs is exiting with the following message:
[SDL ] Unable to set requested videomode: 640x480: No video mode large enough for 640x530

Any ideas? My server did not initially have any x or sdl libraries, and I don't know if those are strictly necessary to complete the tutorial; will the term display work just as well? If I try that, I get the following:

Term Display:
Next at t=0
(0) [0x00000000fffffff0] f000:fff0 (unk. ctxt): jmp far f000:e05b ; ea5be000f0
<bochs:1>

And the process hangs. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Solar]

This would probably be best posted on the Bochs forums, but...

I'm running Linux Mint, which is derived from Ubuntu (desktop). What I did to get Bochs running was:

• starting bochs without bochsrc.txt (text menu)
• set factory defaults
• save those to file
• set "display_library: wx"

Leave the rest at factory defaults, and see if that takes you a step further.

[Combuster]

ubuntu server
(...)
[SDL ] Unable to set requested videomode: 640x480: No video mode large enough for 640x530
(...)
My server did not initially have any x

Bochs has a GUI. It isn't quite meant to work on a headless/terminal-only machine like a typical server. Either you disable the GUI (display_library: none or something like that, see the manual), or get yourself a remote login with X forwarding.

Even better would be not mixing server and desktop software and running bochs on your own machine (or in whichever part of it that does the desktop).

[Solar]

Yikes, I completely missed that part.

I hereby withdraw my comment regarding "wx".

will the term display work just as well?

I second Combuster's suggestion to run Bochs locally instead of a remote server. While both remote X and "term" output might work, they simply add another level of potential failure. Get it to work locally first, then - if necessary - make it work on a remote machine. (In case of remote X, make normal remoting work first, e.g. with a text editor or a calculator, then try it with Bochs.)

[invalid]

I get the following:

Code: Select all

Term Display:Next at t=0           (0) [0x00000000fffffff0] f000:fff0 (unk. ctxt): jmp far f000:e05b         ; ea5be000f0    <bochs:1>

And the process hangs. Thanks in advance for your help!

It's not hung. At this point, Bochs stops execution and displays a prompt. You can enter 'c' to continue execution (even better: try 'h' for help)

[emsworth]

Thanks all for clearing up some misconceptions of mine. I didn't realize how gui-centric bochs was, but I got it running on a linux desktop and completed the bare bones tutorial.

[Combuster]

I didn't realize how gui-centric bochs was

The desktop PC is so GUI-centric that bochs has to be as well

[Solar]

I'm a hard-core console user myself, but I didn't even know that Bochs had a "term" option.

I might toy with that one some day...