color issue (ppc as guest)

Hi, 

on my qemu 1.6.1 -- installed via fink on host Mac OS X 10.8 -- guest PowerPc with Mac OS X 10.4 from original install disk, boots fine but I observe a color issue exactly as described here: 
http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3197
http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3189

Has the problem been reported and/or fixed already? Is any workaround known or has one been suggested? 
I apologize for a "fuzzy" problem description, but I am not an expert user. You may get in touch with me directly at <email address hidden>

Thanks,
Joe.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the bug report. A few things to try:

- Can you confirm that you see the same color issue when booting a Darwin ISO such as darwinppc-602.iso?
- Do you still see the same the issue with QEMU git master as 1.6 is fairly old now?

Using the Darwin image above, I do not see the color issue in the above posts on my Linux x86-64 machine. If it is still present for you, you'll need to give more information about the libraries used to build your QEMU and your host (perhaps it is something specific to OS X and/or your build environment?).


ATB,

Mark.


Hi Mark,

thank you for taking some time! 

a) 
Yes, the color issue is exactly the same for qemu 1.6.0 with darwinppc-602.cdr from https://opensource.apple.com/static/iso/
command used: 

qemu-system-ppc -snapshot -L  -hda /Users/joe/darwinppc-602.cdr -g 1280x1024x32

I have tried some additional options like the g3beige but without effect; maybe I haven't tried all of them yet… 

The color seems to be wrong right from the very first apperance of the opening guest window, even before anything is (visibly) beeing booted. The color depth changes the way in which colors are off: 
32: boot screen deep yellow at first,  colors mixed up in always the same consistent way, otherwise system seems to be fully usable.  
24, 16: bright yellow at first, then funny distorted apple logo screen, than unreadible, text(?) in same color as background…  
8: somewhat normal at first but turns into extremly unusable greyscale later on, feels more like bad 4bit. 
Please let me know if you can reproduce that or if I should take a screen move for example.  

b)
I would need some help installing a newer version of qemu than 1.6.0. For 1.6.0, I got the attached info file which shows all dependencies to compile and install easily via fink. ( http://www.finkproject.org ) Can you provide something similar for qemu 2.0.0rc0 or tell me where/how to get it? Or alternatively, do you see any outdated (even for 1.6.0) dependencies in that info file that could account for that error? Then, would simply rebuilding help?
Again, I am guessing what might be involved outside qemu, but I am NOT an expert an any of that. 

Thank you very much for your help! 

Best,
Joe.  





On 12.03.2014, at 08:37, Mark Cave-Ayland <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hi Joe,
> 
> Thanks for the bug report. A few things to try:
> 
> - Can you confirm that you see the same color issue when booting a Darwin ISO such as darwinppc-602.iso?
> - Do you still see the same the issue with QEMU git master as 1.6 is fairly old now?
> 
> Using the Darwin image above, I do not see the color issue in the above
> posts on my Linux x86-64 machine. If it is still present for you, you'll
> need to give more information about the libraries used to build your
> QEMU and your host (perhaps it is something specific to OS X and/or your
> build environment?).
> 
> 
> ATB,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> -- 
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1290558
> 
> Title:
>  color issue (ppc as guest)
> 
> Status in QEMU:
>  New
> 
> Bug description:
>  Hi,
> 
>  on my qemu 1.6.1 -- installed via fink on host Mac OS X 10.8 -- guest PowerPc with Mac OS X 10.4 from original install disk, boots fine but I observe a color issue exactly as described here: 
>  http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3197
>  http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3189
> 
>  Has the problem been reported and/or fixed already? Is any workaround known or has one been suggested? 
>  I apologize for a "fuzzy" problem description, but I am not an expert user. You may get in touch with me directly at <email address hidden>
> 
>  Thanks,
>  Joe.
> 
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1290558/+subscriptions



Hi Joe,

Thanks for confirming that you still see the issue with the ISO above. From what you're saying, it seems that the problem is apparent on OS X which means I am definitely unable to recreate it here. Since other OS X QEMU users would likely have noticed the bug, I think it may be something related to the build environment.

My suspicion would lie with the libraries used to build QEMU, particularly pixman which is the low-level graphics library used. Do you know whether the pixman submodule from git.qemu.org was used, or whether it was sourced from somewhere else? Unfortunately as I don't use OS X myself it's going to be difficult for me to help you further with the build unless it's just general advice about building QEMU.


HTH,

Mark.


Hi Mark, 

It still seems to me that the problem is somewhere *within* the qemu tree but specific to all MacOSX hosts, and not to my individual build environment. I have done some further research and I found for example 
http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/ppc-osx-on-qemu-for-osx
It lists my exact problem at the bottom of the page under "known issues". (Known to whom, if it seems not to have reached the qemu team yet). It is also present under OSX 10.9.2, which I tried today.    

Also I've tried out the latest builds from qemu.org with the same results.  qemu-system-ppc --version returns 1.7.90 (though I downloaded 2.0.0 rc0)
Interestingly, using qemu-system-ppc64 instead produces the correct colors at the very start of the booting, though of course it doesn't get anywhere else since MacOSX 10.4 and 10.5 are both still 32 bit kernels as far as I know. However, that is at least an indicator that the problem may not be the build environment because that environment was exactly the same for qemu-system-ppc and qemu-system-ppc64

Thanks for your efforts, I appreciate it! 
Joe.   


On 27.03.2014, at 01:16, Mark Cave-Ayland <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hi Joe,
> 
> Thanks for confirming that you still see the issue with the ISO above.
> From what you're saying, it seems that the problem is apparent on OS X
> which means I am definitely unable to recreate it here. Since other OS X
> QEMU users would likely have noticed the bug, I think it may be
> something related to the build environment.
> 
> My suspicion would lie with the libraries used to build QEMU,
> particularly pixman which is the low-level graphics library used. Do you
> know whether the pixman submodule from git.qemu.org was used, or whether
> it was sourced from somewhere else? Unfortunately as I don't use OS X
> myself it's going to be difficult for me to help you further with the
> build unless it's just general advice about building QEMU.
> 
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> -- 
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1290558
> 
> Title:
>  color issue (ppc as guest)
> 
> Status in QEMU:
>  New
> 
> Bug description:
>  Hi,
> 
>  on my qemu 1.6.1 -- installed via fink on host Mac OS X 10.8 -- guest PowerPc with Mac OS X 10.4 from original install disk, boots fine but I observe a color issue exactly as described here: 
>  http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3197
>  http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=3189
> 
>  Has the problem been reported and/or fixed already? Is any workaround known or has one been suggested? 
>  I apologize for a "fuzzy" problem description, but I am not an expert user. You may get in touch with me directly at <email address hidden>
> 
>  Thanks,
>  Joe.
> 
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1290558/+subscriptions



Hi Joe,

Sorry for the delay with this - have had quite a lot on recently. Just to reiterate what I mentioned above, can you rebuild with pixman as a git submodule and see if that makes a difference? Otherwise configure may pick up a different (older) version of pixman on the system which may have bugs. You can confirm which version is being used by the executable by using ldd on the command line.

Also with your current build does 8-bit colour work correctly, e.g. use -g 1024x768x8 on the command line?


ATB,

Mark.


This problem was fixed in early 2015. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X both display the correct colors.