Ask Slashdot: Finding Legacy UnixWare Installation Media? 193
First time accepted submitter lukpac writes "We have an old (ancient) Unisys server in production that hosts a legacy system and are attempting to virtualize it. Unfortunately we don't have a generic UnixWare (2.1.2) installation CD, just a Unisys-specific one, and given the recent unpleasantness (see Groklaw for details), SCO isn't much of an option. We're not looking at pirating it (as above, we do still have the Unisys-specific media), but do need a generic copy of UnixWare. What options, if any, are available?"
Virtualize as bare metal (Score:5, Insightful)
How about doing a dd of the entire drive from the current system to a virtual disk and trying to make that work? Is the Unisys hardware that special? If not, you might be able to get it working by manipulating the virtual hardware of your VM.
Re: (Score:2)
--Catting an iso may have unexpected results, especially if it's bootable; I would definitely recommend using dd in all cases for that.
no p2v for unix? (Score:3)
on windows vmware has a utility that copies your physical installation to a virtual one. even sets it as the same computer account so you don't need to drop and add it to the domain. don't need any install media.
nothing like that for unix
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it's called dd.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite the same thing.
True P2V also handles the hardware differences for supported systems for you, lets you re size drives, even do it on the fly if you use the right vendor. Just a simple DD to a different piece of hardware that is perhaps a decade or more newer is questionable at best, a disaster at worst.
You also might run into license problems if you have dongles or codes keyed to your ( old ) hardware and if you cant get support for new codes, you end up having to go back until you can replace the
Re: (Score:2)
As far as im concerned you are clueless.
Yes, i get to define it.
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:5, Informative)
Never used it with VMware but I've certainly moves physical machines over to KVM using dd images. If you want elegance, Clonezilla has a reasonably easy interface.
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, systems this old need to be retired.
Seriously, that isn't always an option.
Re: (Score:3)
It isn't, but if something's so old it's completely unsupported then you're fucking stupid to bet your business on it not failing.
If the hardware's not virtualizable, the only responsible course IMO is to port the business-critical functionality to something new and standardized. Yes, bugs are expensive to fix, but so's bringing back ancient hardware.
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:5, Insightful)
A system doesn't need to be supported to be able to fully work. If an environment is completely stable why does it need support?
Back it up, make sure you can still buy hardware for it to run on, and you're set. There's no point in upgrading a system which simply works as designed and is never modified. And I say this as someone who has applied the paddles of life to a machine running DOS at my work this year to keep an old proprietary system up and running. It's due for an upgrade in 2015.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, proprietary software which only runs on DOS which can't be upgraded until the hardware it is connected to is upgraded makes it a big deal. Anyway in 2 years it can be upgraded to a windows 7 machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, proprietary software which only runs on DOS which can't be upgraded until the hardware it is connected to is upgraded makes it a big deal. Anyway in 2 years it can be upgraded to a windows 7 machine.
Popcorn anyone? This's either the funniest, or most tragic, story I've heard of in at least a decade. Now I understand why all that critical infrastructure that Panetta's mumbling about is web accessible. Idiots.
Re: (Score:2)
This is operandi modus for any system designed for control or configuration of hardware, whether it be industrial SCADA, PLC programming, robotic arm control, configuration of specialised equipment etc. All proprietary and often software tied to the hardware version.
The software is upgraded when the hardware is replaced.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you know about FreeDOS? If you don't check it out, it's a great MS DOS or other similar vintage DOS replacement. It is stable, updated and has heaps of features that you won't have if you are running an ancient DOS. [freedos.org]
Also, it runs perfectly happily in a VM such as DOSEmu. Check it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes I know about it, but I wonder what benefit it would bring to a system which just works? The system needs to run one application and aside from the occasional hardware failure it has been rock solid, stable and working since it's installation. The system itself needs to be capable of running 1 application and a network driver for a thinnet network card. That's it.
Where's the incentive to upgrade?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if you are running a very stable system and there are no problems, then don't. But if you want to upgrade to a virtual machine in the future, why not? When you do upgrade, old DOS may not run on the new hardware. FreeDOS will.
My opinion would be that if things are fine now, then don't worry at the moment. But when it comes time to upgrade, running with a Free, modern and supported DOS is more sense than continuing with an ancient one.
Re: (Score:2)
If old DOS doesn't run, then FreeDOS doesn't run either. They both target the very same hardware, a 8086 CPU with 80x25 text mode and IBM compatible BIOS that does the I/O (also hardwired into a very old interrupt controller and maybe some minimal other crap). This makes them compatible with PC hardware that doesn't exist yet. Switching to 386 mode, adding disk caching etc. are done by programs you run.
You will find there are many various emulations done by the BIOS, or UEFI emulating itself the BIOS, or th
Re: (Score:2)
If it works, don't upgrade now. When the hardware fails, or you want to upgrade the system, or vitalize it, go with the Free, modern and supported DOS.
Re: (Score:3)
The point is that you probably /can't/ buy the hardware this stuff runs on anymore and quite possibly it's exotic enough that you can't easily virtualize on modern hardware.
Re: (Score:2)
Can, and did just last year. You'd be surprised what you find if you went looking. Right now you can even buy boards compatible with Intel i7 processors which feature ISA slots. Mind you, while the motherboard replacement went well I wonder how much luck we'll have finding a 10base2 network card.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually non-issue when I think back to it. We had another Windows 2k system where the 10base2 network card recently died. We replaced it with an ethernet card and a media converter box to interface it back to a 10base2 network.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not talking about /you/, I'm talking about the /submitter/ and his ancient Unisys crap that might not even be x86.
I've looked at those specialty computers with modern processors and ISA slots for some scientists that I used to support. They seem like a pretty good idea when you've got scientific equipment costing five or six figures, and even if they're still supported by the vendor it might cost four or five to get a PCI board and drivers & software compatible with a Windows sold in the past ten y
Re: (Score:2)
I had some 10base2 network cards. I threw them away a few years ago.
Please tell me that you don't also need a CGA card with a composite NTSC output, or a Hercules adapter, because I tossed those at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
What! You think I'm dealing with ancient hardware or something :-P
Re: (Score:2)
A system doesn't need to be supported to be able to fully work.
What?!?
If an environment is completely stable why does it need support?
What environment is completely stable? Even rocks weather away. Even Black Holes evaporate (in theory). What kind of idiot hires people who believe in such things?
Re: (Score:2)
In a system that doesn't change short of hardware failure what sources of instability do you get? Dos certainly doesn't suffer from incompatibilities introduced with windows updates.
The only thing likely to bring down an unchanging machine where the software was ever so bloody simple is random errors like ECC which can be either corrected for in mission critical systems or often simply solved with a simple reboot as a brute force. Certainly nothing to go calling the vendor's support hotline over.
If you thin
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, systems this old need to be retired.
Seriously, that isn't always an option.
Seriously --it is *always* an option. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't thinking. Look -- failure is always an option. Trust me -- failure is something that will get an executive's attention faster than anything. Failure is such an option that quitting your position -- or sticking around just to witness the beautiful consequences -- are sometime exquisitely worth the price. I would pay money to work anywhere that still depends on Unixware just to watch that fail unfold.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, that isn't always an option.
If that isn't an option, then you've set yourself up for failure.
That doesn't change the situation, but it's important to remember when choosing a solution to begin with.
Re: (Score:2)
The issue is if vmware etc stop providing legacy virtual hardware.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to say that someone would exploit a known hole before then, but this shit is so old that none of the major script kiddie tools probably would even recognize the system and have exploits for it.
If it's that old, the Morris worm would be all they need.
I'm with the guy above. I've no sympathy for people who do this !@#$ to themselves. Wake up and smell the coffee and bite the damned bullet already. No sympathy.
Re: (Score:2)
I rather get the feeling that, if you were to turn up at this workplace with a roll of duct tape, an apple (fruit or computer ; doesn't really matter as long as it will fit into the target's mouth well enough to muffle the screams), a selection of home-made stun guns, barbed-wire whips and chilli-powder-coated butt plugs, and set about "persuading" the PHB responsible for
Re: (Score:2)
I've no sympathy for people who do this !@#$ to themselves.
I rather get the feeling that, if you were to turn up at this workplace with a roll of duct tape, an apple (fruit or computer ; doesn't really matter as long as it will fit into the target's mouth well enough to muffle the screams), a selection of home-made stun guns ...
Er, hey thanks.
PHBs who see the annual maintenance cost as more desirable than submitting a CapEx line for a system that is working.
That's where their argument falls down. It's not working. Their plan failed. You can't just ignore this stuff and expect to get away with it. Entropy exists. It's always there trying to rust you out. "You can't beat the Reaper."
Everyone involved in this cockup has been ignoring reality for years. A critical system running on proprietary closed software which runs on freakin' DOS, something no fool's bothered with in close to two decades, and they wonder what they need do to get back to
Re: (Score:2)
But it hasn't died. Yet.
So, the PHB is taking a gamble on getting promoted out of the firing line for this problem before the problem is realised. That is weighed up against the (presumably well-constructed) CapEx proposals from the nerd farm to actually fix the problem. When you look at it in that light, it may be a fucking stup
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:5, Informative)
dd works just fine with VMWare in most cases. I've used it dozens of times.
Re: (Score:2)
It can certainly work in principle. Unixware might be just too darn old but I've used the dd approach on XP with VirtualBox on Linux.
Re:no p2v for unix? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, systems this old need to be retired.
1. That's exactly what OP is trying to do.
2. Seriously, have you ever worked on anything in the real world? like maybe, telephones? electrical systems? You'd be amazed how many systems are out there payin' the bills every day that are older than most slashdotters.
oh god (Score:1)
unisys server in production that hosts a legacy system and are attempting to virtualize it
a true beowulf cluster
Re: (Score:2)
How long has it been since that meme appeared here? Nice flash-back, nice end to the week. Thanks!
UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 8 !! (Score:4, Funny)
You will be glad you followed this advice !! Think of it, No More CLI !! Now, everything you do, everything you COULD EVER DO, is done simply, and easily, with finger gestures !! You are welcome !! Now go shave that beard, and run home !! Run as fast as you can !!
Re: (Score:1)
But it's no shave November....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
dd (Score:2)
With dd you can create an exact image. Unfortunately you need to figure out if your hard drive can be read in a modern system. Xenix aka OpenServer was far more popular than Unixware in the x86 arena so I wonder what kind of architecture it is?
Here are the steps
1. Create a Linux system
2. Hook up the hard drive to it and mount it (Can Linux read Unixware formatted volumes?) and then run dd off the old hard drive and output it as a binary to the new hard drive.
3. Find a Virtualization solution that is compati
Re: (Score:2)
With dd you can create an exact image. Unfortunately you need to figure out if your hard drive can be read in a modern system. Xenix aka OpenServer was far more popular than Unixware in the x86 arena so I wonder what kind of architecture it is?
Here are the steps 1. Create a Linux system 2. Hook up the hard drive to it and mount it (Can Linux read Unixware formatted volumes?) and then run dd off the old hard drive and output it as a binary to the new hard drive. 3. Find a Virtualization solution that is compatilbe to load the image in
I doubt VMWare supports Unixware but it might. This is going to be a challenge and I know you may hate me for saying it but keep the server. Unless there is a new version of the software that is Linux compatible why fix what isn't broken? Keep in mind old SCO is Tarantula and owns Unixware. New SCO aka SCO Group does not own Unixware but is a just a licensing troll.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO-9.html [tldp.org] Quote from page: The support for BFS is included in the Linux kernel since version 2.3.25. If you are using an earlier kernel, check if BFS homepage contains a patch which adds support for this filesystem. The homepage also contains bugfixes/enhancement which are not yet merged into the official kernel.
Re: (Score:1)
2. Hook up the hard drive to it and mount it (Can Linux read Unixware formatted volumes?)
It doesn't matter, if all you're doing is using dd to dump the raw contents of the hard drive to a file.
Re: (Score:1)
... and dump them exactly where?
Re: (Score:3)
To a file. Did this the other day with an old FreeBSD box. dd'd the drive to a file, called freebsd.raw. Then I used qemu-img to convert it to vmware or virtualbox, or whatever format you need. Then copy the result to your VM host.
With Unix and Linux it really is that easy. With Windows, not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
if we assume that the unixware system does not use IDE or some similarly popular interface type, and thus cannot be hooked to a modern system for dd, then you can always mount a network share from the production server itself, and dd from there.
Slow as hell, but if it gets the image....
Re: (Score:2)
To a file that will then be used as the virtual disk for your new vm (or if your vm software doesn't support raw disk images converted into a disk image format it does support, qemu comes with a tool that can convert raw images to vmware images iirc). You don't strictly need to understand the contents of the disk to read it to an image hook the image up to a vm.
The problem comes if you need to make any tweaks before the system will boot in the vm. Then you do need something that can read/write the filesyste
Re:dd (Score:5, Informative)
Update
You need Unixware 7.1 to run [vmware.com]. DD wont work as it is not a VMWare image disk file.
I know the cost of a new license is $699 per CPU plus $1999 for a TCP/IP, but I would upgrade. The business reason is your ancient 15 year old server is going to die. All it takes is a single prolonged power outage like the one in New York City that your APC can keep on forever and your ancient PSU is TOAST! Systems that old do not reboot reliable.
So your business case it to virtualize it so it can run on newer hardware forever and you wont be caught with your pants down if something happens and it will on such an ancient beast. So buy a new shiny Linux box, install VMWorkstation (VSX or VSPhere is waaaay too expensive unless you run a server farm/data center) and install a fresh copy of Unixware 7.x on a virtual machine and over the network copy the program, config files, and database files. With virtualization you can consolidate and you can put more things on the same box to save power like your DNS Server or a Windows file share too on a different vms to cut down on the amount of servers.
Good luck.
Re:dd (Score:4, Informative)
Qemu comes with tools to change the formats of disk images. Use dd to create a raw file, then convert to whatever format required. I've used Qemu to convert VMware images for use in KVM.
Re: (Score:2)
Qemu comes with tools to change the formats of disk images. Use dd to create a raw file, then convert to whatever format required. I've used Qemu to convert VMware images for use in KVM.
Or you could just run them in Qemu, of course, which supports raw images. But you're right, the qemu-img command is your good friend, especially if you use vmware player and don't have vdiskmanager.
Re:dd (Score:5, Informative)
Newer Update
The poster is screwed. If it is u6000 Unisys model it uses a iAPX-86 family cpu. No it is not x86 compatible. So if something does happen your employer goes out of business! Find out asap what kind of Unisys system it is!!
Newer business plan ...
My recommendation is to migrate to another platform and start over. Your boss will hate that! Your workers will hate that! Your accountants will hate that! But you need to be able to migrate to a platform that can at least run on a virtual machine forever and ever and not be caught with your pants down again. I do not know how important this server is or what it does or hopefully does not have ancient database records needed for daily operation GOD FORBID.
Make a business case with the owners or IT department depending on size and say we have A LIABILITY. Liability gets there attention fast and explain you are one outage or parts failure from disaster that you can't recover from. It will cost money and workers who resist change will hate you and complain how great the other product is, but ask them how much it will cost when it dies?
Believe it or not there are workers who hate leaving IE 6 and 7 behind too. Just because it was what htey used for 10 years even though they used Firefox from home. Your intentions of just replacing SCO in a VM are a good one but from how I see it you just discovered a big problem that a good IT employer would recommend to fix.
Again Good Luck
Re: (Score:2)
There is an app, data, settings, permissions, and code. Examining each of these items can help move it onto a new target system, but it should be done by someone familiar with real Unix and the target system's needs.
If it's x86 code, maybe it can become a virtual machine, using some of the methods described upthread, but it means that filesystem must be supported, and you can get to it via tty devices, if there are terminals rather than host sessions. SSH2 wasn't around back then, so some kind of terminal e
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The iAPX-86 (http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dataframe.php?file=DSA-276782.pdf&dir=Datasheets-14&part=IAPX86#) *is* an 8086 processor combined with an 80139 peripheral/ROM chip, which contained OS support code.
The application binary should use the UNIX API, and may be transportable to any x86 UNIX system with a compatible ABI (Application Binary Interface).
Booting the dd image on any other hardware is a lost cause, since the OS is certain to rely on the ROM code or the peripherals in the 80130 chip.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not just set up a new system on Linux. Then find some way to get PostGres, mysql or modern database client/library of your choice running on the old Unixware server. Then write a script to run on the old Unixware server that accesses the old data on whatever database is being used on the old Unix server using the database driver/client for that old database, grabs that data off the old database, and then using the newly installed *sql client, sends the data to the new Linux server. On the new linux ser
Re: (Score:2)
Your posts indicate to me that you have no experience doing this sort of thing.
I have experience, and DD will work, followed by a pass by qemu-img to convert the image. But in fact a raw image *does* work with vmware. I've done that before too, though now that qemu-img works so well, converting to a native image is no problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Linux box, install VMWorkstation (VSX or VSPhere is waaaay too expensive unless you run a server farm/data center)
Wrong solution. You don't use a workstation hypervisor for servers when there are free server hypervisors out there.
There's a free edition of ESXi, a free Citrix XenServer, and lots of places with Windows Server licenses are probably already licensed for Hyper-V, even if they don't realize it.
All of those are far superior to running a desktop program on top of a full install of Linux!
Re: (Score:2)
Private Message Me? (Score:1)
I've been ... oddly, collecting original installation CDs, and licenses (valid) for dozens and dozens of OSes for years. I have early versions and later ones, slackware, unixware, irix, and many others.
Send me a message ...
Re:Private Message Me? (Score:5, Funny)
I've been ... oddly, collecting original installation CDs, and licenses (valid) for dozens and dozens of OSes for years. I have early versions and later ones, slackware, unixware, irix, and many others.
Send me a message ...
You know you posted as AC, right?
Re:Private Message Me? (Score:4, Informative)
've been ... oddly, collecting original installation CDs, and licenses (valid) for dozens and dozens of OSes for years. I have early versions and later ones, slackware, unixware, irix, and many others.
...
Send me a message
You know you posted as AC, right?
You know there's no way to "private message" someone on slashdot, right?
Re: (Score:2)
You know there's no way to "private message" someone on slashdot, right?
I did not. I've mostly ignored the new features that have been added over the years. Collecting old Unix installation kits seemed like a hobby someone on here might have, and posting without logging in is a mistake people sometimes make. Guess I missed out on a joke. Oops.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been ... oddly, collecting original installation CDs, and licenses (valid) for dozens and dozens of OSes for years. I have early versions and later ones, slackware, unixware, irix, and many others.
Send me a message ...
You know you posted as AC, right?
He was so ashamed of his odd hobby.
UnixWare v1.1 here, never used, if you want it. (Score:5, Informative)
Complete with all documentation, some of it still shrink-wrapped. The diskette and CD envelopes were also never opened, though the adhesive on the perforated flaps has dried up and left them unsealed even though they were.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't expect that it would be useful, but just in case there was enough flexibility that it might work I offered it anyway. Did you also try the ARSTechnica OpenForum?
Just clone the drive... (Score:2)
I've installed Unixware 2.1.2 a few times, the license was straightforward. You're license to operate one copy of the media on a single machine, generally limited to two CPU's (SMP style). Unisys as a reseller didn't retain any copyrights, IIRC.
So clone that drive and fire it up. The original media did have a BIOS check, but only at installation. I remember booting up Unixware on other motherboards without any issue, as long as the specs were pretty close.
Other than that, if you want to continue with th
Other Options (Score:2)
Option 1. Re-implement your legacy application on a modern platform, from legacy source code, or from scratch/reverse-engineering.
- You'll pay down your technical debt and possibly have a supportable, and maybe even virtualized, production system going forward.
Option 2. Sustain legacy equipment knowing that no modern emulator handles all the details of your particular proprietary hardware.
- Double down on your investment and leave the problem for the next guy.
Option 3. Hire IBM. (Nobody ever got fired for b
Old SCO (Score:5, Interesting)
Slightly off topic but I'd like to share it:
Old SCO was pretty classy, they had their "Free license" Unixware 7 advertized on their site, but you had to pay for a "media kit" for about $100. Being a poor uppity teenager, I emailed them asking where I could download the media in order to take advantage of their free license. They asked for my address.
Three days later I had a DHL shipped media kit box with over 20 discs in total. I was sad to see them sell Unixware off.
Re: (Score:3)
I never worked there, but know tons of people who did, and old SCO was great in every way except for being competitive. Once the free *BSDs took off, and then double especially once Linux took off, there was no reason for it to exist any more. They completely failed to keep up with the world.
They played beer baseball in the parking lot, they had a variety show every year, they were a generally interesting bunch of people. But SCO UNIX sucked on toast, from a user's perspective. Too many differences, wacky d
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
SCO had a lot of very smart and talented people and a really awesome culture. I can only imagine that the reason they failed is purely management. I've never tried to dishearten any of my ex-SCO pals with a post mortem, though.
Re: (Score:2)
After looking at those pictures, all I can say is: eeeeee. 128kB RAM maximum and a 16-bit processor? And they were trying to do real work on it? In 1998? What were they thinking? Even in those days, you trivially could do an indistinguishable emulation in software on a low-end PC...
Re: (Score:2)
It's NCR, and the page calls it a POS system, so that was the "brains" for a point of sale system. I have no idea if it was an enterprise-wide system or for a single store. My guess is this consolidated sales information enterprise-wise, probably over dedicated lines to their stores, but that's strictly a guess.
It would be far from trivial to emulate this on a PC. If you look through the linked page, you find that the computer has a number of I/O boards, which probably have no comparable equivalent in the P
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They never adjusted to the change in the market.
SCO and all the other x86 UNIX companies (there used to be a handful!) continued to operate on the assumption that nobody would trust a free alternative long after it became obvious that everyone who mattered would. The rest is the history of SCO vs. Linux.
BSD (Score:2)
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=svr4&sektion=4 [freebsd.org]
Might work, experiment at your own risk. If it does work, your options have become much greater.
i might have the disks (Score:2)
I was using this stuff in 1995-96. I might still have the floppys (!) or CDs around for pentium architcture. I'll look around, it's probably in storage. But you know it's full of security holes, right?
My idea (Score:2, Informative)
From what I understand is the server that you have is not x86 so trying to run the software off that is pretty much not possible, unless you can get new x86 copies or have the source and can recompile. Unless you can get sources for whatever information system you are using, it seems the dd option is out of the question, you cannot just copy the system binaries , you wont be able to just copy the binaries it would appear.
One solution i might suggest is first setting up a new Linux server, then porting over
What does this server actually do? (Score:3)
What does this server actually do? Can you tell me? Is it a Sun Yellow Pages server?
Re: (Score:2)
I've only ever dealt with Oracle once and never in a Mission Critical Capacity.
Just buy SCO (Score:4, Funny)
> SCO isn't much of an option.
Why not? Just buy them out. By now you can probably buy the company for a few hundred bucks...
Re: (Score:2)
Go back to 1999 and www.freebird.org (Score:3)
And then download the free version of UnixWare 2.1.2:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990117023208/http://www.freebird.org/freeUW.html [archive.org]
Otherwise, time to update your OS, and keep copies of the installation media this time.
G18) Is there a UnixWare user's group? (Score:4, Informative)
G18) Is there a UnixWare user's group?
Dan Busarow writes: The SCO Users Group can be reached electronically
as scoug@xenitec.on.ca. Subscription requests to
scoug-request@xenitec.on.ca.
http://lib.ru/UNIXFAQ/faq-unixware-general.txt [lib.ru]
Binary compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux got some binary compatibility tweaks on the kernel to run programs for other operating systems. I've worked on a similar issue in the past and the relevant services running on an OpenServer were just copied into the Linux system with a patched kernel with their dependences. Luckily the program was simple enough to make it without minor bugs like glitches with the linux terminal.
If dd -> image conversion with qemu-img -> virtualization is not an option you could research a bit about binary compatibility with your old server.
option: (Score:2)
I think you can legitimately download installation media if you then obey the stipulations attached to the license you already have, that being that you can run the system on one machine at a time. Microsoft have done this for years, in that they allow you to make a backup copy of your installation media. I have it from a senior Microsoft liaison with the British Software Alliance that it is within the bounds of the license limitations to download installation media in order to reuse an OEM license on the s
"... SCO isn't much of an option." (Score:3)
SCO (or The TSG Group, as it is now called) is no option at all. The UnixWare/OpenServer business was sold to a new company called "UnXis Inc" over a year ago. (TSG retained the lawsuits.)
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unxis-completes-purchase-of-sco-unix-assets-119609744.html [prnewswire.com]
The new company does advertise migration consulting services for UnixWare 2.x.
How much is this old server worth to you?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is old Unisys server x86? (Score:5, Insightful)
If that server is truly ancient, qemu might handle it at speeds comparable to your old hardware -- or perhaps even faster.
Re: (Score:2)
Unisys did sell x86 systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bitch please. Somebody will create a unixware simulation in MineCraft!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, come on. Just stand back and look at it. It's almost art, in a Jackson Pollock sort of way. Who does !@#$ like that at 19:19 on a Friday?!? You can almost see his Mom and little brother standing behind him wailing on him with nerf bats and guilt trips.
If I ever decide to off myself, that's the way I want to go out, for sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Then can someone please waterboard him and then call out a drone strike on him?
Re: (Score:3)
Ann Coulter will stop by your house and dry hump you like a desiccated [praying] mantis in heat.
She will bite my head off when she's done, right? Then, I think I'm okay with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Neither Xen nor KVM can run very much, but Qemu and vmware both ought to do fine... if it's even x86
Re: (Score:2)
My employer has an extensive (thousands of systems) installation of older OpenServer running under Vmware.
We've been suffering lately from extensive (virtual) drive corruption problems across the system but have not thus far been able to identify the problem.
That's a good heads-up. Are you using the IDE or SCSI interface for your storage volumes?