Create a VM with Qemu or Virtualbox to run SuSE 6.1

[t_neo]

For nostalgic reasons I’d like to create a virtual machine with either Qemu or Virtualbox to run SuSE 6.1. I have the original CD-ROM still laying around and like to get that going. However I fail to get it to boot into the installer as both emulators run into a (to my eyes) similar issue. After being requested to insert the boot floppy in the drive and hit ENTER it stops.

I have a simple configuration:
1 CPU
1024 MB memory
20G disk drive
added the floppy drive (to mount the boot image floppy)
passed through my ODD (and boot from there)

I have found very old topics of 15 years ago. However my search has not turned up anything useful to move forward. Is there a way to set a virtual machine up to run this old version?

[rawar]

I found SuSE 6.1 in my basement and tried it with Leap 15.6 and qemu and the installation failed to boot at the same point. The kernel does not find the root disk and i did not understand why but this is one possible quick and dirty workaround that might be helpful:
From CD1 i copied file /cdrom/disks/eide01 to /tmp then extraced the initial root image (a minix filesystem) from this boot disk

cd /tmp 
sudo mount -o loop eide01 /mnt
cp /mnt/INITDISK.GZ /tmp/
sudo umount /mnt
gzip -d INITDISK.gz

then use cd1 to boot and the INITDISK file as the requested root disk in qemu.

qemu-img create -f qcow2 s61.qcow2 1G
qemu-system-i386 -m 1024 -cdrom /dev/sr0 -hda s61.qcow2 -fda INITDISK

When the root image is requested press enter after a while the installer will start. At least a minimal installation without X (i do not twiddle with sax again in this life) and loopback network only ( i do not want to connect a SUSE 6.1 system to the internet accidentally ) worked for me. After the installation the system is started with

qemu-system-i386 -m 1024 -cdro /dev/sr0 -hda s61.qcow2

[t_neo]

I’m able to get it to boot now.

• I assigned just 256MB RAM
• I created a drive of only 1GB
• I told Qemu it is Red Hat 6 as there is no SuSE in the list
• I can boot the boot CD-ROM (or the local ISO image) and I get to Yast.
• Partitioning takes forever for /dev/hda3
• When I click install I get the following error:
  
  

No matter what I try I’m not able to get passed this error. How can I tell Qemu it needs to think it is i386?

[t_neo]

I don’t understand when I follow your suggested steps. I’m not getting pasted the initial boot. It stops at LILO already for me.

When I set up the machine through the Virtual Manager, I get the machine to start but then I’m not able to install as shown above. I don’t understand that error.

[arvidjaar]

@t_neo

I don’t understand that error.

https://tr.opensuse.org/SDB:LILO_fails:_Error_messages_and_their_interpretation

[rawar]

What hardware architecture did you use to create this VM “x86_64” or “i686” ?

[rawar]

Could you give a bit more details about the steps you have done ?

[t_neo]

Woohoo success! I just recreated everything based upon your post. And now it is installed. I just don’t understand what went wrong the first time. But mission accomplished.

Thanks!

[t_neo]

[knurpht]

And now I am curious about your usecase

[t_neo]

Pure nostalgia for me. SuSE 6.1 was the first distro I bought back in the day. And I have the disks in my drawer ever since. A trip down memory lane.

[knurpht]

Ah, fair enough. Nice to know it worked out.