System/161 Installation

Getting and Installing System/161

Note that if you are taking a course using System/161, chances are that your course staff has already installed it for you.

Getting System/161

Download URLs:

http://os161.eecs.harvard.edu/download/ (long-term address not yet operational)
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~dholland/os161/download/ (current as of this writing)

Supported Platforms

Actively maintained/tested host systems:

Linux
NetBSD
Solaris

Other supported host systems:

Digital Unix
DragonflyBSD
FreeBSD
MacOS X
OpenBSD

Other Unixes should work. You may need to use GNU make (or BSD make) on some. Windows is not supported; it might work with Cygwin or MinGW or the like, maybe. (I'll take noninvasive patches, but I won't maintain them.)

Supported host CPU types:

any.

System/161 should be runnable on any remotely sane CPU and is known to be 64-bit clean.

Supported host compilers:

gcc 4.0 through 4.8
clang

gcc 4.9 might work or might require minor patches for a clean build. Older gcc probably still works. There also is explicit support for the DEC compiler for alpha on Digital Unix (aka Compaq Tru64) but it hasn't been tried in a long time. I have no data whatsoever on Sun's compilers.

Supported guest compilers:

It should be possible (with some caution) to use any compiler that targets 32-bit MIPS CPUs.
The processor regression tests use the OS/161 cross-compiler toolchain.

Installation (Unix sysadmins and developers)

Short installation directions for Unix sysadmins: untar, configure --help, configure, make, make install. As of version 1.15 System/161 configures with --prefix and installs in the normal layout.

Installation (everyone else)

Assuming you downloaded version 2.0, unpack the distribution file by typing

	tar -xvzf sys161-2.0.tar.gz

This will create a subdirectory called sys161-2.0 with the distribution files in it. Go into this directory by typing

	cd sys161-2.0

and run the configure script. These are the configuration options:

Option	Description	Default
`--with-compiler=CC`	Use CC as compiler	(probed)
`--prefix=DIR`	Install under DIR	`/usr/local`
`--bindir=DIR`	Install programs into DIR	PREFIX/bin
`--exampledir=DIR`	Install examples in DIR	PREFIX/share/examples/sys161
`--docdir=DIR`	Install docs into DIR	[PREFIX/share/doc/sys161
`--mandir=DIR`	Install man pages into DIR	PREFIX/man
`--devel`	Developer mode	off
`--debug`	Turn on debug symbols for sys161 itself	off

The configure script requires one additional argument: the processor type. For now there is only one processor supported, mipseb, so always supply that.

Thus to configure to install in your home directory you might do

	./configure --prefix=$HOME/sys161 mipseb

Note that, because of the way the Unix shell handles ~, if you use ~/sys161 instead of $HOME/sys161 it won't work.

Now compile and install by typing

	make

then

	make install

If the compilation fails, please file a bug report.

If you get errors caused by make, such as

	make: Missing separator

	gcc: No input files

try using GNU make (or BSD make). There are a number of dialects of the old AT&T make around, and some of them do not work very well. Very old versions of BSD make may also have problems.

This compiles and installs two versions of the simulator: sys161, the normal or "fast" simulator, trace161, which is the same as sys161 but has lots of debugging and diagnostic support built in and thus doesn't run as quickly. It also installs three support programs: hub161, a tool for connecting multiple copies of System/161 together into a virtual network, stat161, a tool for printing the internal performance counters, and disk161, a tool for manipulating disk images. See below for more information.

What's Installed

Assuming the default installation directories, and version 2.0, System/161 installs the following:

/usr/local/bin/sys161-2.0: The fast version of the simulator.
/usr/local/bin/trace161-2.0: A slower version of the simulator with tracing and profiling support.
/usr/local/bin/stat161-2.0: A tool for monitoring the simulator.
/usr/local/bin/hub161-2.0: A tool for linking multiple copies of System/161 together to form a virtual network.
/usr/local/bin/disk161-2.0: A tool for manipulation disk images.
/usr/local/bin/sys161: Symbolic link to the last installed sys161 version.
/usr/local/bin/trace161: Symbolic link to the last installed trace161 version.
/usr/local/bin/stat161: Symbolic link to the last installed stat161 version.
/usr/local/bin/hub161: Symbolic link to the last installed hub161 version.
/usr/local/bin/disk161: Symbolic link to the last installed disk161 version.
/usr/local/share/examples/sys161/: Directory containing example config files.
/usr/local/share/doc/sys161/: Directory containing this documentation.