3 ms·

Every technology dies unless there is a human alive who cares enough about it. For futureproofing it, perhaps make a Docker container of it

skissane 6y ago
> For futureproofing it, perhaps make a Docker container of it You can't (directly) put an OS in a Docker container. Docker is an application container technology, not an OS virtualisation technology. Apps inside Docker run in user mode under the Linux (or less commonly, Windows) kernel. What you can do, is put an emulator in Docker, and put the OS in the emulator image. However, if your OS runs on a common platform (e.g x86 or x86-64), there is probably not much value to creating a Docker container vs just serving up the VM (such as a disk image or OVA file) for use with QEMU or VirtualBox or whatever. If you are dealing with a more obscure platform, it can make more sense to package the image and emulator together into a Docker container. For example, I put the 1970s vintage IBM mainframe operating system MVS 3.8J [0] in a Docker container. I think that makes more sense because it requires a less common emulator (Hercules as opposed to QEMU or whatever), and Hercules needs to be configured with a specific configuration to make it work. [0] https://hub.docker.com/r/skissane/mvs38j https://hub.docker.com/r/skissane/mvs38j
- technofiend 6y ago
  What a cool project. Now you have me on the hunt for SIMH docker images for PDP 11 and Vaxen.
  - anthk 6y ago
    Just use SIMH and learn to do it, dammit.
    - lproven 6y ago
      This. It's not hard. I got a copy of DEC VAX/VMS running inside SimH a decade ago, in one evening's work.
    - technofiend 6y ago
      In my defense - I have used naked SIMH. I just thought the idea of point and grunt SIMH sounded fun.
- pmarreck 6y ago
  Good points all. Also, this is awesome. I think "machine preservation via emulation" may need to be a thing. Supposedly there's thousands of science papers, for example, whose supporting code may no longer trivially run...

skissane 6y ago

> For futureproofing it, perhaps make a Docker container of it You can't (directly) put an OS in a Docker container. Docker is an application container technology, not an OS virtualisation technology. Apps inside Docker run in user mode under the Linux (or less commonly, Windows) kernel. What you can do, is put an emulator in Docker, and put the OS in the emulator image. However, if your OS runs on a common platform (e.g x86 or x86-64), there is probably not much value to creating a Docker container vs just serving up the VM (such as a disk image or OVA file) for use with QEMU or VirtualBox or whatever. If you are dealing with a more obscure platform, it can make more sense to package the image and emulator together into a Docker container. For example, I put the 1970s vintage IBM mainframe operating system MVS 3.8J [0] in a Docker container. I think that makes more sense because it requires a less common emulator (Hercules as opposed to QEMU or whatever), and Hercules needs to be configured with a specific configuration to make it work. [0] https://hub.docker.com/r/skissane/mvs38j https://hub.docker.com/r/skissane/mvs38j

technofiend 6y ago
What a cool project. Now you have me on the hunt for SIMH docker images for PDP 11 and Vaxen.
- anthk 6y ago
  Just use SIMH and learn to do it, dammit.
  - lproven 6y ago
    This. It's not hard. I got a copy of DEC VAX/VMS running inside SimH a decade ago, in one evening's work.
  - technofiend 6y ago
    In my defense - I have used naked SIMH. I just thought the idea of point and grunt SIMH sounded fun.
pmarreck 6y ago
Good points all. Also, this is awesome. I think "machine preservation via emulation" may need to be a thing. Supposedly there's thousands of science papers, for example, whose supporting code may no longer trivially run...