Xen users - Feb 2007 - Which OS is *most* supported for host os?

I''m about to re-install linux onto my 64bit xeon machine.  Which distro
would have the best chance of having things work out-of-the-box, as a
xen host?

I''m usually a Suse & Ubuntu fan . . .

-Dave

-- 

David Frascone

                 Budget: A method for going broke methodically.


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On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 09:18 -0500, David Frascone wrote:
> I''m about to re-install linux onto my 64bit xeon machine.  Which
distro
> would have the best chance of having things work out-of-the-box, as a
> xen host?
> 
> I''m usually a Suse & Ubuntu fan . . .
If you mean commercial support then it would probably be SLES as, AFAIK,
it''s the only commercially supported distro that ships with Xen (with
RHEL shipping in the near future).

If you mean hardware support (i.e. with your particular hardware) then I
have no idea, you''d have to check the distro''s HCLs.  But if
you really
want to be 100% absolutely sure that your hardware will be supported
then I''d go for a roll-your-own kinda distro like Gentoo.

And then my third answer would be if you know SUSE or Ubuntu pretty well
then you probably wouldn''t have too much trouble getting Xen to work
with them even if they don''t work out-of-the-box.

-- 
raise SystemExit



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So -- There''s no, "Xen won''t work on SomeCheezyDistro at
all" nonsense .
. there might be gotcha''s, but it''ll pretty much work, with
some
possible hacking, on any distro?

That works for me!

-Dave

Marduk wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 09:18 -0500, David Frascone wrote:
>   
>> I''m about to re-install linux onto my 64bit xeon machine. 
Which distro
>> would have the best chance of having things work out-of-the-box, as a
>> xen host?
>>
>> I''m usually a Suse & Ubuntu fan . . .
>>     
>
> If you mean commercial support then it would probably be SLES as, AFAIK,
> it''s the only commercially supported distro that ships with Xen
(with
> RHEL shipping in the near future).
>
> If you mean hardware support (i.e. with your particular hardware) then I
> have no idea, you''d have to check the distro''s HCLs.  But
if you really
> want to be 100% absolutely sure that your hardware will be supported
> then I''d go for a roll-your-own kinda distro like Gentoo.
>
> And then my third answer would be if you know SUSE or Ubuntu pretty well
> then you probably wouldn''t have too much trouble getting Xen to
work
> with them even if they don''t work out-of-the-box.
>
>   
-- 

David Frascone

           Useless Invention: Camcorder with braile-encoded buttons.



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> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> David Frascone
> Sent: 05 February 2007 14:42
> To: Marduk
> Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Which OS is *most* supported for host os?
> 
> So -- There''s no, "Xen won''t work on
SomeCheezyDistro at all"
> nonsense . . there might be gotcha''s, but it''ll pretty
much
> work, with some possible hacking, on any distro?
I think that''s pretty much it, yes. There may be some distros thatr
require a bit more hacking around, and some that are less work, but to
the collective knowledge of this mailing list, if you''re reasonably
versed on making Linux work for you in general, adding Xen isn''t too
big
a deal - but of course, it all depends on what you''re used to doing on
your Linux system too!

Most problems we see here are related to:
1. Not being able to configure the kernel/initrd correctly (most distros
that include Xen shouldn''t have this problem, but of course there may
be
some distros that include "all" drivers in the regulard setup, but
only
a few in the Xen-package, for example). 
2. Not being able to set up an initrd for the guest-OS. This is
generally a case of understanding the fact that initrd''s contain not
only FILES, but also small bits of script, and the consequences of those
scripts. 

I''ve not seen anyone write a post saying "I can''t
possibly get Disto X
to work" with a reply "Yes, that''s true, you should use
Distro Y
instead". But several people a week post "How do I get Distro X to
work
with Xen". I think almost all get there in the end ... ;-)

--
Mats
> 
> That works for me!
> 
> -Dave
> 
> Marduk wrote: 
> 
> 	On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 09:18 -0500, David Frascone wrote:
> 	  
> 
> 		I''m about to re-install linux onto my 64bit 
> xeon machine.  Which distro
> 		would have the best chance of having things 
> work out-of-the-box, as a
> 		xen host?
> 		
> 		I''m usually a Suse & Ubuntu fan . . .
> 		    
> 
> 	
> 	If you mean commercial support then it would probably 
> be SLES as, AFAIK,
> 	it''s the only commercially supported distro that ships 
> with Xen (with
> 	RHEL shipping in the near future).
> 	
> 	If you mean hardware support (i.e. with your particular 
> hardware) then I
> 	have no idea, you''d have to check the distro''s HCLs.  
> But if you really
> 	want to be 100% absolutely sure that your hardware will 
> be supported
> 	then I''d go for a roll-your-own kinda distro like Gentoo.
> 	
> 	And then my third answer would be if you know SUSE or 
> Ubuntu pretty well
> 	then you probably wouldn''t have too much trouble 
> getting Xen to work
> 	with them even if they don''t work out-of-the-box.
> 	
> 	  
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> David Frascone
> 
>            Useless Invention: Camcorder with braile-encoded buttons.
> 


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On Monday 05 February 2007 15:42, David Frascone wrote:
> So -- There''s no, "Xen won''t work on
SomeCheezyDistro at all" nonsense .
> . there might be gotcha''s, but it''ll pretty much work,
with some
> possible hacking, on any distro?
well, for sure a distribution like slackware (which i am a fan) can be tricky 
to setup.
just because you will have to resolve manually the dependencies.

bye
d.

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On 2/5/07, David Frascone <dave@frascone.com>
wrote:
>
>  So -- There''s no, "Xen won''t work on
SomeCheezyDistro at all" nonsense . .
> there might be gotcha''s, but it''ll pretty much work, with
some possible
> hacking, on any distro?
Depends on what you want to do.
I tried SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian as Dom0 and DomU. All
basically work, but when it comes to cross-distribution functionality,
Fedora is last and SuSE second last. I mean with that: on Debian and
Ubuntu it''s mostly painless to install another distribution as DomU,
while on Fedora I have major headaches getting SuSE to work, and even
bigger headaches getting Debian to work. On SuSE I head some headaches
get Fedora to work. Fedora has only a PAE enabled Xen, whcih does not
work with netbsd DomU image, that is without PAE. but that might
change. (either by netBSD also prociding a pae-enabled kernel, or by
Fedora providing pae and pae-less packages.

Ah, SuSE only delivers python 2.5 by default, so XenSource Binary
packages don''t work there - either one would need to find a way to
install python 2.4, or compile from sources, then the newer python
version seems to work well.

Henning

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Henning, 

I like your answer.  I''ve been fighting with Fedora6 getting
DomU''s of a
variety of distro''s working and a variety of Fedora people kept telling
me that it was a Xen problem.  I switched over to rPath Dom0 and it
worked without any problems (same images wouldn''t work with Fedora6).

I think it might be useful in the future to poll the group to ask what
they have working and not working each time the xen or distro image
changes and posting this information into the wiki for reference.  

I''d love to have the distro people prove it wrong (but their answers
thus far have only applied to how to get their DomU''s working).

Cheers, 

Gary 

-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Henning
Sprang
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 8:29 AM
To: David Frascone
Cc: Marduk; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Which OS is *most* supported for host os?

On 2/5/07, David Frascone <dave@frascone.com>
wrote:
>
>  So -- There''s no, "Xen won''t work on
SomeCheezyDistro at all"
nonsense . .
> there might be gotcha''s, but it''ll pretty much work, with
some
possible
> hacking, on any distro?
Depends on what you want to do.
I tried SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian as Dom0 and DomU. All
basically work, but when it comes to cross-distribution functionality,
Fedora is last and SuSE second last. I mean with that: on Debian and
Ubuntu it''s mostly painless to install another distribution as DomU,
while on Fedora I have major headaches getting SuSE to work, and even
bigger headaches getting Debian to work. On SuSE I head some headaches
get Fedora to work. Fedora has only a PAE enabled Xen, whcih does not
work with netbsd DomU image, that is without PAE. but that might
change. (either by netBSD also prociding a pae-enabled kernel, or by
Fedora providing pae and pae-less packages.

Ah, SuSE only delivers python 2.5 by default, so XenSource Binary
packages don''t work there - either one would need to find a way to
install python 2.4, or compile from sources, then the newer python
version seems to work well.

Henning

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On 2/6/07, Gary W. Smith <gary@primeexalia.com>
wrote:
> Henning,
>
> I like your answer.  I''ve been fighting with Fedora6 getting
DomU''s of a
> variety of distro''s working and a variety of Fedora people kept
telling
> me that it was a Xen problem.
Or "it''s the domU distro that is wrong because it can''t
handle console
stuff right, every distribution need it''s own special initrd" -
all
such things.
Only, When using XenSource Xen packages on Fedora, things work much
nicer and nearly all problems disappear.

It''s good to know that I am not alone  :)

Henning

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