xen@software-managed.com
2014-Feb-26 15:24 UTC
Best kernel choice for a stable VGA passthrough under Debian 7.4 wheezy
Hello, I am using Xen on the standard Debian stable 7.4 Wheezy, i.e. kernel 3.2 and xen 4.1, on my company laptop. This is a Lenovo X230 with Intel i5 3220 Ivy Bridge and its IGP; Intel 520 SSD and 8 GB of RAM. My system is not able to have: a) Power Management: when I run Debian over xen as Dom0, the power mnagement does not work anymore: sleep block my computer and there is not way to wake up, so I have to restart the whole. b) PCI Passthrough: I have installed a Windows7 HVM under Xen which works fine, but wuth the default VGA supporting only DX6, it is not even possible to install Visual Studio on it (requires DX9 since 2010). This would be only the IGP of Intel i5 Ivy (3220). Xen seems to be the only hypervirtualizer supporting it. What is the recommanded stable kernel combination to be able to have both? I would prefer a "out of the box" solution with support than a own compiled solution. I just want something that works. I've read that Power management requires kernel over 3.4 and PCI passthrough requires pciback. I suppose I would also need usbback for USB3 and scsiback to get full support for my SSD (trim?) Does the Jessie backports (kernel 3.12) support these features? Or do I really have to compile all the stuff? Thanks for your advices! Eric