245 lines
11 KiB
Text
Executable file
245 lines
11 KiB
Text
Executable file
This is the "roadmap" posted in the mailing list, augmented by
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comments from the mailing list and the irc chat.
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Anybody is welcome to work on any of these issues. Some of
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these items are rather simple and can be implemented by single
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individuals. Other items are quite complex and development needs
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to be coordinated. So, if you want to contribute, please drop
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us a note in the mailing list, so you can get help or exchange
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ideas.
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Christophe Bothamy.
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0. Donations
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Source Forge recently set up a donation system for hosted projects.
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Should we accept donations ? What could we do with the money ?
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- give to EFF, FSF or other
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- fund Kevin to continue the work on plex86 so we can use it
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- bounties for somebody write optimized win9x/NT/XFree/linux/*BSD
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drivers for our vga/net/ide cards
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- other ?
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Status in Bochs 2.5:
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No decisions about this yet.
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1. Speed
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Speed (well lack of) is one of the biggest criticism made by users
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who'd like to see Bochs run as fast as Virtual PC.
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Paths we can explore to get more speed :
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1.1 virtualization : plex86
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1.2 dynamic translation : qemu
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Status:
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Some work has been done for Bochs 2.5 but still long way is ahead.
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2 multithreading. Conn Clark wrote :
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Threading might be nice too, for those of us who have SMP/SMT machines.
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I have a patch from Mathis (who hangs out on the IRC channel all the
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time) that puts the video card interface in its own thread. It has
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troubles though that I have not resolved. It may also be easier to debug
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a threaded peripheral.
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I also think that it might be possible to thread a chunk of the CPU
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emulation to improve performance on a SMP/SMT machine. Specifically
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write_virtual_dword, write_virtual_word, write_virtual_byte, etc...
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might just be able to be threaded. I think the threading overhead might
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be less than the protection and address translation code. We would have
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to try it to find out. I'm also sure there can be some nasty hurdles to
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overcome.
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Status:
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Third party group started a para-Bochs project exactly to reach above goals,
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some beta version is already released.
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The home page of the project: http://grid.hust.edu.cn/cluster/VirtualMachine/main.html
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3. Plugin architecture
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3.1 The plugin architecture can be reworked if we want to support
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multiple similar devices like serial, net or vga cards.
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We currently have two "types" of plugins: "core" and "optional".
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Maybe we could add "classes" of plugins. The current version of
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Bochs supports the classes "display_library" and "io_device".
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New classes can be "config_interface", "net_lowlevel" and
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"sound_lowlevel"
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3.2 Stanislav wrote :
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Plugin architecture should be rewritten like real plugin architecture s.t.
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Bochs VGA plugin for example will be real plugin. I mean that replacement
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of plugin dll in already compiled Bochs will replace Bochs VGA card and
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the new card will be detected automatically.
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This will allow for example developing of plugins separately from Bochs.
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3.3 Michael Brown wrote :
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If the configuration interface is to be reworked, could we also make it so
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that plugins are self-contained, rather than needing to pollute config.cc
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with code for defining and parsing plugin-specific options
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Status:
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Some of the basic work is done now: The config parameter handling has
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been rewritten to a parameter tree and user-defined bochsrc options are now
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supported. For most of the optional plugins the config parameter creation and
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bochsrc parsing has been moved to the plugin code. Unknown bochsrc options are
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now treated as plugin names and Bochs tries to load them.
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4. PCI host<->guest proxy
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Being able to use a real pci device from inside Bochs would be a
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great feature of Bochs. It would ease reverse engineering of non
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documented cards, or one could even use a real spare vga card.
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Frank Cornellis has done a great job on this subject, and we began
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integrating his changes.
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Status:
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The pcidev device is present in SVN and it has been updated for the new PCI
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infrastructure, but the new code is untested yet.
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5. Subdirectories in iodev
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The iodev directory contains the various implemented iodevice.
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With the new pci devices, new harddrives and new net access methods,
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it could be interesting to add new subdirectories like :
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iodev/video/... --> for standard vga and new card emulation
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iodev/disks/... --> for the ata/atapi classes, hd/cd classes and host accesses
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iodev/net/... --> for ne2k and host net access
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isa and pci devices would be mixed in the directories, but this should
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be manageable.
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Status:
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Subfolders for disk imaging, sound, network and usb devices were created
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under the iodev folder.
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6. VGA
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For SVGA emulation we have Bochs VBE and the Cirrus adapter. We should have
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a look at the voodoo3 (specs http://v3tv.sourceforge.net/docs.php).
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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7. Random thoughts on disk emulation improvements :
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7.1 autodetection of disk size / geometry
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7.2 uml cow disk image support
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7.3 compressed disk image support
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7.4 extend redolog-disk specification to add coherency check of the flat
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image file, by storing its fstat-mtime field in the redolog.
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Status:
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Autodetection now works for all image types created with bximage and vmware3
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images. Vmware4 disk images support was added in Bochs 2.3.5 release.
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Coherency check for 'undoable' mode images added for Bochs 2.6.
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8. net
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8.1 bootable ethernet rom ?
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8.2 user mode networking ?
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see etherboot, Micheal Brown wrote :
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This already works; you can build an Etherboot rom image with the pnic
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driver, specify it as an option ROM in bochsrc and it will boot. I'm
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using this extensively at the moment in Etherboot development.
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In the Etherboot project's CVS, in the contrib/bochs directory, you can
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find a working bochsrc file and an up-to-date README with step-by-step
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instructions on getting this working.
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Status:
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The pnic device is present in SVN, but the status is unknown. PCI boot ROM support
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has been added for Bochs 2.6. User mode networking currently requires the 'slirp'
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program and it is not possible on all platforms. The slirp core should be added
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to the Bochs sources.
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9. Bios
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9.1 add "jump table placeholder" and log missing function calls in the bios.
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Check completness with Ralf Brown interrupt list.
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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9.2 use Coreboot or SeaBios as possible alternatives/extensions to
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Bochs Bios ROM we have.
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Status:
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Starting from Bochs 2.5 SeaBIOS is usable.
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10. LGPL VGABios
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11.1 Video parameters table
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There is a very nice parameter table in 3dfx banshee document
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http://www2.lm-sensors.nu/~lm78/pdfs/Banshee_2d_spec.PDF
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see also http://www.xyzzy.claranet.de/dos/vgacrt.c
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Status:
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Version 0.7a of the LGPL'd VGABIOS has minimal support for the video
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parameter table.
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11. Optimized Guest drivers still needed : VGA, IDE, NET
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We have a specific VGA driver for winNT/2K, but still
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lack drivers for other OSes.
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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12. USB support
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Ben Lunt has been working on USB support. The USB mouse and keypad code
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is present in Bochs and almost stable. USB flash disk support has been
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started and the runtime device change support should be completed.
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Status:
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OHCI and UHCI host controller and 7 devices are known to work in Bochs.
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USB xHCI support is present, but needs more testing.
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13. Config file and dynamic menu
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13.1 Benjamen R. Meyer wrote :
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I think we should rework the .bochsrc file to be more standard across all
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devices. I like how the USB configuration is done in it, and think we should
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put something similar together for everything else. In other words, create
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something that can be easily used for everything, and make it easier to
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configure in the process.
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From what I can tell right now, most of the configuration lines are randomly
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thrown together as each gets implemented or added, instead of having
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something that is based on a standard approach to the configuration.
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The result should be something that would be able to easily auto-configured
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by another program (a configuration editor?) with minimal changes necessary
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when new devices/features are added.
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13.2 Franck Cornelis wrote : the config system needs some work...
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e.g. the main menu is static while it could be generated at run-time...
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the main menu text lives somewhere in a file... while it should be generated
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at run-time by iterating the main menu objects
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Status:
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The config options handling has been rewritten to a parameter tree. Dynamic
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menus are now implemented on win32.
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14. lowlevel serial support for Windows.
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Volker has been working on this.
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Status:
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Not yet complete (transmit works, receive is losing data).
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15. Parallel port
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Conn Clark wrote :
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I would like to see better parallel port support so I can use a dongle.
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This is something I would find very useful as it would mean I wouldn't
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have to boot back into windows ever again. I also recognize that this
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may require a kernel module be written, which is beyond my current
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skills. I know others will find this useful as I have had to tell a
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few people that their parallel port driven peripherals that require a
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bidirectional parallel port won't work.
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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16. Guest-To-Host Communication
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Try to adapt VirtualBox guest-to-host communication methods into Bochs.
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Having VirtualBox Shared Folders or VNAT support in Bochs could very
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simplify its usage.
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17. Patches / Bug reports
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There are dozens of patches floating around. Some are outdated,
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don't apply cleanly, are obsolete/unneeded. We could try to do
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some clean-up, and keep only relevant ones.
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We should also clean up the SF bug tracker. Some bugreports are
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very old and we asked for more information with no response.
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Status:
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There is some progress, but still a lot of work to do.
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18. Positions
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If you want to help without coding, here are available positions :
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19.1 Webmaster : update website (Jan Bruun Andersen offered to help)
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19.2 patch coordinator : look at incoming patches (sourceforge and
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mailing list) and upload / update in the SVN patches directory.
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19.3 platform maintainers for macos / win32
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19.4 disk image maintainer : create and maintain our collection
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of disk images. Usually, only the configuration file needs to be
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updated, and old bios files have to be removed. Some packages
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still contain very old bios files, they should definitely have
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to be removed.
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Status:
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More active developers are needed to do the things described above.
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19. Bochs demo cd/dvd
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With version 2.1, it is now technically possible to use disk images
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on a read-only media, with a journal files on a read/write media.
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It would be great to create a demo cd/dvd with executables for
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supported platforms, configuration files and read-only disk
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images, the journal files would be written in a temporary
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directory on the harddisk.
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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20. Other CPU architectures : arm, ppc
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This has been asked in the mailing list. I'm not really
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interested, but other people might be. Should we propose to
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host the new CPUs code in our source tree, or should we let
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people fork ?
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Status:
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Not done yet.
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