On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 05:50:57PM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote: > > OpenBSD 4.5+ works if "mpbios" is disabled, more info here: > > http://scie.nti.st/2009/10/4/running-openbsd-4-5-in-kvm-on-ubuntu-linux-9-04 > > OpenBSD 4.5 works on 99.9% of PCs out there with mpbios enabled, > so KVM must have a really stupid bug.
Something about the mpbios implementation on OpenBSD does not seem right as disabling with 'bsd -c' does not have the same result as building a kernel with mpbios0 disabled in the config. That and your 99.9% comment lead me to believe there is a bug in OpenBSD. Given 1) Per mpbios.c ACPI and a useable MPBIOS appear to be mutually exclusive 2) New PCs are shipping with ACPI instead of APM 3) GENERIC with mpbios enabled breaks on 0.1% of PCs. I'm at a bit of a loss as to why mpbios is still enabled in GENERIC. My memory of the brief discussion on the KVM mailing list was that KVM/QEMU emulation of one of the instructions executed by going through the mpbios code was mishandled. If you'd like me to find the relevant thread and forward it on to the mpbios maintainer, I'll gladly do so. Now to pragmatic considerations. I understand and appreciate your mistrust of running OpenBSD under a virtual machine emulator. But there are folks like me that find it useful to be able to hold a dog and pony show for a network and cluster design on a laptop rather than an anvil case of laptops, switches, and routers. -- Chris Dukes
