Fedora xen - Nov 2009 - Disappointed with the Upcoming Fedora 12 Release

Hi,

Fedora is my favorite Linux distribution. I have been eagerly anticipating
the upcoming release of Fedora 12 but am disappointed to discover that it
will not support Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel.

<QUOTE>
 Xen Kernel Support

The kernel package in Fedora 12 supports booting as a guest domU, but will
not function as a dom0 until such support is provided upstream. Work is
ongoing and hopes are high that support will be included in kernel 2.6.33
and Fedora 13.

The most recent Fedora release with dom0 support is Fedora 8.
</QUOTE>

Link: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/Virtualization

Here is a list of my Xen pv-ops dom0-related videos on Youtube so far. I am
using Fedora 11 x86_64 as my host operating system.

[1] PCI Express x16 VGA Passthrough to Xen-based Windows XP Home HVM Virtual
Machine Part 1 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNEiSInrav0

[2] PCI Express x16 VGA Passthrough to Xen-based Windows XP Home HVM Virtual
Machine Part 2 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hOT_9LIG5w

[3] The Final Solution: Open Source Xen VGA Passthrough

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ia3IwG6tp4

[4] Playing 3D FPS Game Alien Arena in Xen-based Windows XP Home Edition HVM
Virtual Machine

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tLzYqIJ7Q0

[5] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: 3D Gaming Benchmark Results Part 2
of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYg6n8yBktM

[6] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: 3D Gaming Benchmark Results Part 1
of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I13E1MQbMc

[7] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: Disk I/O Benchmark Results

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL7JS4PMpzY

[8] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: PerformanceTest 7.0 Virtual CPU
Benchmark Results

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLR-o9tX_Tw

[9] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: SiSoftware Sandra Virtual Processor
Benchmark Part 1 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUXOAPce_40

[10] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: SiSoftware Sandra Virtual Processor
Benchmark Part 2 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5lle8WOHLE

[11] Xen Virtualization VGA Passthrough: Playing 3D FPS Games in Windows XP
HVM Virtual Machine

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pikwgl8bac8

[12] Xen Virtualization & Intel VT-d: Direct Hardware Access to Graphics
Card by Windows Virtual Machines

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHUwg_zxYgw

[13] Xen Virtualization, VT-d, VGA Passthrough, & Windows XP HVM Virtual
Machine: Super PI 32M Benchmark

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxuNRiMxDU

[14] Xen Virtualization: Super PI 32M Benchmark 2nd Iteration

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7W0OFFcw7I

[15] How to Setup a Virtual Supercomputer Center or HPC Cluster using Xen
Virtual Machines Part 1 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmNKi6CoExM

[16] How to Setup a Virtual Supercomputer Center or HPC Cluster using Xen
Virtual Machines Part 2 of 2

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAqDESEWMjM

[17] Building a Rocks HPC Cluster with Xen Hardware Virtual Machines (HVM)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbLaPpwNAx4

[18] Building a Rocks HPC Cluster with Xen Hardware Virtual Machines (HVM)
(Update 1)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWHIImVBr4o



Because of the absence of official support for Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel in
Fedora 11, I have to manually and laboriously configure my home multimedia
and general purpose desktop system over a period of 2-3 months. Admittedly I
have gained a lot of useful knowledge throughout the process. Thanks to
Boris'' setup guides, and assistance from Pasi, Han Weidong from Intel
Corp,
Jeremy Fitzhardinge from Citrix, and the rest of the Xen developers
community, I have managed to get a fully working Xen pv-ops dom0 Fedora 11
host operating system.

It will be a daunting task for newbie Linux users who want to setup a Xen
pv-ops dom0 system with the more recent releases of Fedora. Please do
consider including Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel in the next release of Fedora.

Michael Young has Xen dom0 kernel RPM packages for FC12. I am surprised that
they are not included in the upcoming Fedora 12 release.

Link: http://myoung.fedorapeople.org/dom0/x86_64/

Thank you.

-- 
Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) Dip(Mechatronics) BEng(Hons)(Mechanical
Engineering)
Alma Maters:
(1) Singapore Polytechnic
(2) National University of Singapore
My Primary Blog: http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com
My Secondary Blog: http://enmingteo.wordpress.com
My Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo
Email: space.time.universe@gmail.com
Mobile Phone (Starhub Prepaid): +65-8369-2618
Street: Bedok Reservoir Road
Country: Singapore

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:38:27PM +0800, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming)
wrote:
>    Hi,
> 
>    Fedora is my favorite Linux distribution. I have been eagerly
anticipating
>    the upcoming release of Fedora 12 but am disappointed to discover that
it
>    will not support Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel.
> 
pv_ops dom0 kernel has only recently started working for many/most
people, so it was too late for F12 release.

There are still some missing features, most notably missing blktap2 support
for tap:aio: file-based images.

But it seems features are ported and bugs are fixed pretty fast now, so
let''s hope pv_ops dom0 kernel can be included for F13!

It works for me, and for you aswell. So it''s getting there..

-- Pasi

Sigh...Another six months wait...

-- 
Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) Dip(Mechatronics) BEng(Hons)(Mechanical
Engineering)
Alma Maters:
(1) Singapore Polytechnic
(2) National University of Singapore
My Primary Blog: http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com
My Secondary Blog: http://enmingteo.wordpress.com
My Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo
Email: space.time.universe@gmail.com
Mobile Phone (Starhub Prepaid): +65-8369-2618
Street: Bedok Reservoir Road
Country: Singapore


On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 8:05 PM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@iki.fi> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:38:27PM +0800, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming)
> wrote:
> >    Hi,
> >
> >    Fedora is my favorite Linux distribution. I have been eagerly
> anticipating
> >    the upcoming release of Fedora 12 but am disappointed to discover
that
> it
> >    will not support Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel.
> >
>
> pv_ops dom0 kernel has only recently started working for many/most
> people, so it was too late for F12 release.
>
> There are still some missing features, most notably missing blktap2 support
> for tap:aio: file-based images.
>
> But it seems features are ported and bugs are fixed pretty fast now, so
> let''s hope pv_ops dom0 kernel can be included for F13!
>
> It works for me, and for you aswell. So it''s getting there..
>
> -- Pasi
>
>

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 02:05:10PM +0200, Pasi Kärkkäinen
wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:38:27PM +0800, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming)
wrote:
> >    Hi,
> > 
> >    Fedora is my favorite Linux distribution. I have been eagerly
anticipating
> >    the upcoming release of Fedora 12 but am disappointed to discover
that it
> >    will not support Xen pv-ops dom0 kernel.
> > 
> 
> pv_ops dom0 kernel has only recently started working for many/most
> people, so it was too late for F12 release.
> 
> There are still some missing features, most notably missing blktap2 support
> for tap:aio: file-based images.
> 
> But it seems features are ported and bugs are fixed pretty fast now, so
> let''s hope pv_ops dom0 kernel can be included for F13!
> 
> It works for me, and for you aswell. So it''s getting there..
> 
Also Fedora kernel developers want to have all the main features
included in the upstream kernel - they don''t want to maintain
out-of-the-tree patches. 

pv_ops dom0 patches are not yet included in the upstream kernel.
Although Jeremy''s git tree is tracking upstream pretty closely now.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/jeremy/xen.git;a=shortlog;h=xen/master

-- Pasi