Qemu + tiny core linux = poor man's chromium on NetBSD

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

<rant>

"Works best with internet explorer".

Remember the days of hating those websites that displayed above message?

History repeats (or may be above message isn't that much of a history
yet). There are sites that "best work" with google chrome nowadays.

What doesn't change is, whether you like it or not, you have no option but
to work with such websites. Well, had that not been the case I'd use
elinks almost everywhere...

Only difference is, chromium is a lot more coveted for its speed, rather
than hated which to an extent IE was.

</rant>


Best option is of course to have it natively on NetBSD and I am sure it
will come some day.

Linux emulation layer could be an option. But I personally do not have
sufficient expertise to try Linux version of chromium through NetBSD Linux
emulation layer. May be if someone has, kindly submit a package to pkgsrc
or wip. (Just like libreoffice has native as well as Linux emulation
version we might have both in future.)

Linux as Xen DomU is an option and I know how to use it, but I have
several other difficulties with xen, particularly related to graphics.

So I come to Qemu. Tiny core Linux can be a very good option as it is
lightweight and has chromium browser in its repository. Getting it work is
pretty easy as well. After getting the terminal I set the DISPLAY to that
of the host and launch chromium perfectly fine.

The only trouble I am having is, after chromium (or may be any X11
application) launches, after a while X11 freezes with only mouse pointer
movement visible. I have to press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to go to a console and kill
-9 qemu, which seems the only way to get back control.

I tried to create a nested X server with Xnest and launched chromium in
that. Now the freezing behavior is gone. However the Xnested application
does not render properly. Many of the widgets, text elements simply do not
appear properly under Xnest.


Summary of the long story: If anyone could help diagnose/work around above
behavior (of screen freezing requiring killing -9 Qemu) with an X11
session launched from a Qemu guest, that will really help a lot in
completing this solution.

Above was on NetBSD 7.0 amd64 Qemu 2.4.0.1, but I had witnessed similar
behavior with older NetBSD and Qemu versions in the past.

Mayuresh.