Guide: Openstep 4.2 in VirtualBox

[itomato]

Create the VM
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Give it a sensible name.  The operating system and version do not matter much here â€" I have installed  OS 4.2 using the Mac OS X  description before â€" just for the nice icon  
'Other' works just as well.
The default forgthe 'Other' machine type is 64MB â€" I boosted it to 256 for grins.
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2GB is sufficient for a User build.  I recommend allocating disk in 2GB to 8GB volumes, as NS/OS are  notoriously picky about disk sizes.
Addganother disk rather than  another partition.
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Clgck on through..
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Soge customization takes place to configure the machine for Openstep:
â€" Addga floppy controller
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[img [http://juddy.org/os42vbox-phase1/OpenstepVirtualBoxGuidePhase1-7_1.png[/img]
Set the Storage Controller to PIIX4
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Add a floppy controller, and select the install disk floppy image (not a requirement at this step, but  we're here..)
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Enable audgo if you like â€" choose the Sound Blaster 16
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Confggurre the network â€" it is not essential to change the MAC as shown.
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Start upgthe VM, and you should see this ^
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Select your language
Press 1, Enter
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Switch to the device deiver disk image  
...and press EntergReturn
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This will become second nature
7
7
7
5
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…and again for the secondary controller.  7 7 7 5
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No additional drivers are required.
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Et voila.
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This is always a good sign!
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The VBOX CDROM gs recognized at sd0, as is our ATA hard disk, hd0
Preposterous!
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1,gEnter
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1,Enter
1,Enter
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The disk image gets sliced and formatted..
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And the installation process gets under way.
This could take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, depending on your host machine's capacity.
When the base gnstallation is complete, eject the drivers disk image using the 'devices' menu:
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...and reboot frog your Openstep 4.2 disk!
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Starting...
You are presented with Configure.app to perform basic configuration.
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Yougcan select the basic SVGA adapter at this point, but since we're installing patch 4 and using the  VESA driver, you can skip this step.
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The AMD NIC is detected..
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Forgsound, I choose the SB16 PnP driver â€"( though there's a replacement driver that seems to work a bit  better) along with the System Beep driver â€" just because it's so damned cool!
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The overall vgew of the configured devices in your VM. If you wanted to add serial ports, this is where  you do that with the 'serial port server'.
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Yougmay also customize the keyboard layout â€" the Microsoft Keyboard has all the keys recognized by  modern keyboards..
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...and Save!
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If you do not select a graphics driver, you still get the VGA BW display. Just click 'save anyway'...
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Next is the 'real' installation, where the base package sets may be selected. I opt only for the  Demonstrations, so I can get Backspace.app!
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Click 'Install', and wait..
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After the install completes, reboot again..
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and wait a bit for the system to come up!
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Your machine may take a moment trying to configure the network..
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..and it may not be able to, prompting you to press 'Control-C'. With VirtualBox, the 'Host' key is the  'Right Ctrl' key by default, as shown in the lower right corner of the window. Use the left Ctrl key here.
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Select the language and keymap â€" NeXTUSA may give you the Control key in the CapsLock position,  if that floats your boat.
Wgth the last few Vms I've built, I'm seeing a phantom floppy in the drive, which when prompted to  initialize, shows 'Initializing...' in WorkspaceManager for eternity.
Confirm your selection, and get ready for Phase 2!
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[Thomas]

Unfortunately, that ends right where it gets interesting with getting a better display resolution set up  

[itomato]

Yep.  To come:

- Basic Openstep configuration (Root password, etc.)
- Install Patch 4 (get VESA capability, clock persistence, etc..)
- VirtualBox networking howto (static network configuration)

The thing is, most of this stuff is covered in eleventy other places.  Granted, a virtual machine presents a special case, but so much if it has been covered in so many ways in so many places, I am not in a hurry to re-re-rewrite what goes back 10 years.

[Thomas]

Will that all work also for NeXTSTEP 3.3?
I have a circuit layout program that only runs on 3.3 and it also only works well with a big color display. So a working display driver is the most urgent thing I need.

[itomato]

Phase 2
Install Patch 4.  The easiest way to get files into the VM at this point is with an ISO image.  Create one using a tool that will allow Rock Ridge extensions with long filenames.  'genisoimage' may be used.
I created a disk using:
genisoimage -o NSOSY2K.iso -hide-rr-moved -max-iso9660-filenames -p itomato -R NSOSY2K/
Add the image to the CDROM device with 'More CD/DVD Images'.
Copy the file from the CDROM to the 'me' directory, or some other location with read/write access.
And extract.
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You have to be root to install the patch, and so a few things must be done before we actually install.
Launch Preferences.app, and click the padlock icon to set the password for 'me'.
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Then, head to the Workspace Manager and navigate to NextAdmin, and run User Manager.app to set the password for root.
Select 'User' and select 'root' and enter a password.

Save changes, verify the password, then logout.
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At the login window, enter 'root', and the password you set before.
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Navigate to 'me', and double-click the installer package for the patch.
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Let it do its thing – you don't need any NeXT or SPARC packages.
When the installation is complete, we'll reboot and perform some configuration to get VESA graphics, etc.
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Select Power Off from the Workspace Manager menu, and wait for the notification that it's OK to shut down.  No power management is working to allow soft reboots, so use host-R, or select 'Reset' from the machine menu.
You can tell the patch is installed by the artifact left with the spinning winchester icon.
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Login as root again, and run Configure.app from NextAdmin..
Select the Display Device panel, and choose the VESA VBE driver.
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Double-click the VESA driver if you're display is not highlighting..
Then select a video mode – 888/32 is the 32-bit display.
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Click Done and Save.
Logout and reboot again..
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Get ready for Phase 3!

[Mominul]

Unfortunately,I cannot see the images

[nextchef]

Looks like his site has changed or is gone so all the links no longer work.

[wizard]

I can confirm that everything still works with the current (4.3.8 ) virtual box EXCEPT networking, at least I could not get it to work.

[/img]

[nuss]

Network support is broken for a long time. For me the latest version that worked was 4.1.12.

Here is the bug report: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10545

[segabor]

Good news! It looks like it has been fix awhile. I will give try soon but I lost my vbox image so I need to setup a new one.

[itomato]

Basic networking works in VBox.

PCnet-FAST III attached via NAT and use the same basic config as with Previous:

1. Use Simple Network Starter (you find it in the NextAdmin directory)
  and set up some values:
  a  Check "Provide the services specified below."
  b  Choose a hostname (whatever you want).
  c  Set IP address to "10.0.2.15".
  d  Go to "Network Options..." and set
     Router to "10.0.2.2"
     Broadcast Address to "10.0.2.255"
     Netmask to "255.255.255.0" and
     NIS Domain Name to "None".
  e  Hit configure. You will be prompted to connect the Ethernet
     cable.
  f  If not already done, connect emulated Ethernet now using
     Previous' GUI and hit OK.

2. Using root access rights open and edit these files:
  a  /etc/hostconfig and replace "-ROUTER-" with "10.0.2.2".
  b  /etc/resolv.conf and add "nameserver 10.0.2.3".
     If this file does not exist, you have to first create it.
     Be sure you create a plain text file. If you use Edit.app
     you can do this by selecting Format > Text > Make ASCII.

  Howto: Open the above files using root privileges (NeXTstep 3.3):
  a  Open the /etc directory with this command in Terminal:
     "open /etc"
  b  Select the file/application to open and from Workspace select
     Services > Open Sesame > Open As Root.
  c  For making a new resolv.conf open Edit.app the same way (b)
     and in the save dialog type as name "/etc/resolv.conf"

3. Reboot.

These instructions want to use 10.0.2.3 as the nameserver - not sure if that's a typo or what, but I use 10.0.2.2 and 8.8.8.8.

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#
# /etc/hostconfig
#
# This file sets up shell variables used by the various rc scripts to
# configure the host.  Edit this file instead of rc.boot.
#
# Warning:  This is sourced by /bin/sh.  Make sure there are no spaces
#    on either side of the "=".
#
# There are some special keywords used by rc.boot and the programs it
# calls:
#
# -AUTOMATIC- Configure automatically
# -YES- Turn a feature on
# -NO- Leave a feature off or do not configure
#
HOSTNAME=lantern5v
INETADDR=10.0.2.15
ROUTER=10.0.2.2
IPNETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPBROADCAST=10.0.2.255
YPDOMAIN=-NO-
NETMASTER=-YES-
TIME=-AUTOMATIC-


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#/etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 10.0.2.2


SSH
Install the openssh and related packages from kb7sqi.

openssh.pkg
openssl.pkg
prngd.pkg
zlib.pkg

Create host key

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ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_key


Make the necessary additions to rc.local

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# sshd
if [ -f /usr/local/sbin/prngd ]; then
       echo -n ' prngd' >/dev/console
       /usr/local/sbin/prngd /etc/egd-pool
fi

if [ -f /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl ]; then
        echo -n ' httpd' >/dev/console
        /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start
fi

if [ -f /usr/local/sbin/sshd ]; then
       echo -n ' sshd ' >/dev/console
       /usr/local/sbin/sshd
fi


Reboot


Setup VirtualBox NAT Port Forwarding
To connect to your VBox Guest from the host, you need to set up port forwarding for SSH.

Host IP: 127.0.0.1
Host Port: 2222
Guest IP: 10.0.2.15
Guest Port: 22

You should be able to connect to your Openstep guest with

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ssh -p 2222 [email protected]


[dgb75]

Any idea why I might not be getting sound? I've got everything else up and running. Sound is configured as SoundBlaster 16 PnP. I've tried the 4.00 and 4.02 drivers. I have also tried messing around with IRQ/DMA settings. Finally, I am running the latest version of VirtualBox (5.1.12).

Any ideas/suggestions are appreciated.

[kolli]

Any idea why I might not be getting sound? I've got everything else up and running. Sound is configured as SoundBlaster 16 PnP.

I think the sound emulation in VirtualBox is 8bit SB, not SB16.

[dgb75]

I worked out that there was a different driver I needed to use which almost works correctly, minus an echo after playing certain sounds.

[pTeK]

If some one who reads this and is wondering why the network ip's are the same as in Previous it is because of the NAT networkings mentioned in the following link which gives all the guest network ip's on the NAT network.

Virtual Box Nat settings

9.8. Fine Tuning the Oracle VM VirtualBox NAT Engine
9.8.1. Configuring the Address of a NAT Network Interface
In NAT mode, the guest network interface is assigned to the IPv4 range 10.0.x.0/24 by default where x corresponds to the instance of the NAT interface +2. So x is 2 when there is only one NAT instance active. In that case the guest is assigned to the address 10.0.2.15, the gateway (Router) is set to 10.0.2.2 and the name server can be found at 10.0.2.3.

If the NAT network needs to be changed, use the following command:

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$ VBoxManage modifyvm VM-name \
--natnet1 "192.168/16"
This command would reserve the network addresses from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.254.254 for the first NAT network instance of VM-name The guest IP would be assigned to 192.168.0.15 and the default gateway could be found at 192.168.0.2.