Emulating Solaris 10 SPARC on QEMU

Issue

I have an old Solaris SPARC application that I'm trying to get running.

I learned from this question that x86 Solaris won't cut it. I recently learned that VM virtualbox can't emulate SPARC architecture. Therefore, I am currently trying to emulate Solaris 10 SPARC using QEMU.

I have acquired a Solaris 10 SPARC iso (sol-10-u11-ga-sparc-dvd.iso) from here.

I have Qemu 3.1.50 installed.

However, when I try to run, it gives me:

C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\CMARPS>"C:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-sparc64" -m 512 -cdrom "sol-10-u11-ga-sparc-dvd.iso" -boot d -nographic
OpenBIOS for Sparc64
Configuration device id QEMU version 1 machine id 0
kernel cmdline
CPUs: 1 x SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi
UUID: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Welcome to OpenBIOS v1.1 built on Feb 15 2019 10:05
  Type 'help' for detailed information
Trying cdrom:f...
Not a bootable ELF image
Not a bootable a.out image

Loading FCode image...
Loaded 7420 bytes
entry point is 0x4000
Evaluating FCode...
Evaluating FCode...
Ignoring failed claim for va 1000000 memsz af6d6!
Ignoring failed claim for va 1402000 memsz 4dcc8!
Ignoring failed claim for va 1800000 memsz 510c8!
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_147147-26 64-bit
Copyright (c) 1983, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
could not find debugger-vocabulary-hook>threads:interpret: exception -13 caught
interpret \ Copyright (c) 1995-1999 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
\ All rights reserved.
\
\ ident "@(#)data64.fth 1.3     00/07/17 SMI"

hex

only forth also definitions
vocabulary kdbg-words
also kdbg-words definitions

defer p@
defer p!
['] x@ is p@
['] x! is p!

8 constant ptrsize

d# 32 constant nbitsminor
h# ffffffff constant maxmin
\
\ Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
\ Use is subject to license terms.
\

\ #pragma ident "@(#)kdbg.fth   1.20    08/06/06 SMI"

h# 7ff constant v9bias
h# panic - kernel: no nucleus hblk8 to allocate
EXIT

Trying to boot gives me:

0 > boot
boot Not a Linux kernel image
Not a bootable ELF image
Not a bootable a.out image

Loading FCode image...
Unhandled Exception 0x00000000ffeb6080
PC = 0x00000000ffd27954 NPC = 0x00000000ffd27958
Stopping execution

Either there is something causing a kernel panic or my iso isn't actually booting correctly(?)

I thought that maybe the iso was actually a 32 bit SPARC iso so I tried that:

C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\CMARPS>"C:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-sparc" -m 256 -cdrom "sol-10-u11-ga-sparc-dvd.iso" -boot d -nographic
Configuration device id QEMU version 1 machine id 32
Probing SBus slot 0 offset 0
Probing SBus slot 1 offset 0
Probing SBus slot 2 offset 0
Probing SBus slot 3 offset 0
Probing SBus slot 4 offset 0
Probing SBus slot 5 offset 0
Invalid FCode start byte
CPUs: 1 x FMI,MB86904
UUID: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Welcome to OpenBIOS v1.1 built on Feb 15 2019 10:04
  Type 'help' for detailed information
Trying cdrom:d...
Not a bootable ELF image
Not a bootable a.out image
No valid state has been set by load or init-program

0 > boot
boot Trying cdrom:d...
Not a bootable ELF image
Not a bootable a.out image
No valid state has been set by load or init-program
 ok
0 >

What am I doing wrong here?

Solution

You're trying to run with only 512 mb of RAM:

...qemu-system-sparc64" -m 512 ...

Per the Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 Installation Guide: Planning for Installation and Upgrade page on System Requirements and Recommendations:

For UFS or ZFS root file systems, 1.5 GB is the minimum memory required for installation. However, note that some optional installation features are enabled only when sufficient memory is present. For example, if your system has insufficient memory and you install from a DVD, you install through the Oracle Solaris installation program's text installer, not through the GUI.

Answered By - Andrew Henle