Xen users - Oct 2007 - Xen Novell rpm does not start Dom0 on my openSuse 10.2

Hi

I have serveral questions concering xen.

I installed the Novell xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm
<http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse10x/RPMS/i686/xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm>
and kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm
<http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse10x/RPMS/i686/kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm>
on my openSuse 10.2 System and tried to start. What I got was a
"Mismatch between Xen and Dom0 Kernel" panic (See pict).
What did I do wrong or do the rpm files not really work/match?


Hence I installed the sources and compiled them all (?). After also
compiling the hmvloader with the dev86 package and installing it all, I
was able to start Dom0 (seem to work fine so far) and to start DomU in
order to install a native WinXP from the CD-Rom. The Dom0 Window pops up
for some seconds and disappears again, not long enough to read anything
(according to the log due to poweroff; who did poweroff?).
I something  must still be wrong, but what? Appreciate any help/idea!

And last but not least. One of the reasons why am doing all this,
besides of getting to know xen, is that a have a windows slideshow
program running on VMWare with a very poor video performance (flickering
picts instead of alphablending, messy timing). My hope was, that with
xen and Pacifica I could get near native performance.
Does anyone have experience with xen/Pacifica and video perfomance? Does
it get near to native WindowsXP?

Cheer for your ideas

Muzungu







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On Wednesday 24 October 2007 22:47:13 Roman Kellner
wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have serveral questions concering xen.
>
> I installed the Novell xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm
> <http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse1
>0x/RPMS/i686/xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm> and
> kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm
> <http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse1
>0x/RPMS/i686/kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm> on my openSuse 10.2
I can''t seem to find these RPMs. It looks like the Xensource website(s)
are undergoing a few changes with the Citrix acquisition. You might be 
better off looking at openSUSE 10.3 - as it ships with Xen 3.1 and the 
2.6.22 kernel.
> System and tried to start. What I got was a "Mismatch between Xen and
> Dom0 Kernel" panic (See pict).
> What did I do wrong or do the rpm files not really work/match?
I see that error message, however there''s not much more information to 
go on, so would have to go with the opinion that there is a mismatch. 
Not sure why or where (as I can''t get the files you referenced)
> Hence I installed the sources and compiled them all (?). After also
> compiling the hmvloader with the dev86 package and installing it all,
> I was able to start Dom0 (seem to work fine so far) and to start DomU
> in order to install a native WinXP from the CD-Rom. The Dom0 Window
> pops up for some seconds and disappears again, not long enough to
> read anything (according to the log due to poweroff; who did
> poweroff?).
> I something  must still be wrong, but what? Appreciate any help/idea!
Not sure to be honest - memory maybe? Do you even see the equivalent of 
the BIOS screen?
> And last but not least. One of the reasons why am doing all this,
> besides of getting to know xen, is that a have a windows slideshow
> program running on VMWare with a very poor video performance
> (flickering picts instead of alphablending, messy timing). My hope
> was, that with xen and Pacifica I could get near native performance.
> Does anyone have experience with xen/Pacifica and video perfomance?
> Does it get near to native WindowsXP?
The video performance is nowhere near native Windows XP. A lot of the 
effort for Xen (certainly in openSUSE and SLES) is centred around 
virtualising servers rather than desktops. It will be interesting to 
see how the Citrix acquisition of Xensource changes this if at all. 
Currently you get a emulated graphics adapter, which in my experience 
runs slower than the VMware emulated adapter. It''s a constantly 
changing story though, and there are advances being made in this and 
other areas, however I''m led to believe that accelerating the video 
performance is one of the most difficult parts of Xen, whereas at the 
moment a lot of effort is going into improving disk and network I/O 
from hardware assisted virtualisation by the use of para-virtual 
drivers for network and disk devices.

Jon

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> I have serveral questions concering xen.
>
> I installed the Novell xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm
>
<http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse10x/RPM
>S/i686/xen-3.1.0-1.i686.rpm> and kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm
>
<http://bits.xensource.com/oss-xen/release/3.1.0/kernel-3.1-opensuse10x/RPM
>S/i686/kernel-xen-2.6.18-3.1.0.i686.rpm> on my openSuse 10.2 System and
> tried to start. What I got was a
> "Mismatch between Xen and Dom0 Kernel" panic (See pict).
> What did I do wrong or do the rpm files not really work/match?
Looks like the RPMs don''t match.  Where did you get those links from? 
I''m not
sure who''s responsible for those RPMS but it''d be nice if we
could let them
know if there''s a build mismatch!
> Hence I installed the sources and compiled them all (?). After also
> compiling the hmvloader with the dev86 package and installing it all, I
> was able to start Dom0 (seem to work fine so far) and to start DomU in
> order to install a native WinXP from the CD-Rom. The Dom0 Window pops up
> for some seconds and disappears again, not long enough to read anything
> (according to the log due to poweroff; who did poweroff?).
> I something  must still be wrong, but what? Appreciate any help/idea!
If you post your config file, we could take a look.  Sounds like you''re
getting there, anyhow.
> And last but not least. One of the reasons why am doing all this,
> besides of getting to know xen, is that a have a windows slideshow
> program running on VMWare with a very poor video performance (flickering
> picts instead of alphablending, messy timing). My hope was, that with
> xen and Pacifica I could get near native performance.
> Does anyone have experience with xen/Pacifica and video perfomance? Does
> it get near to native WindowsXP?
I don''t know if OSS Xen has significantly better full virtualisation 
performance compared to VMware.  Xen''s largest advantages come when
it''s able
to run a paravirtualised guest.  Also, the performance of the CPU 
virtualisation is miles ahead of the display virtualisation performance, so 
the virtual framebuffer tends not to be blisteringly fast.

Have you tried using the VMware tools within the guest to improve performance?  
Alternatively, if you have access to it (e.g. WinXP Pro) you could use the 
Windows remote desktop protocol to forward the display over the virtual 
network.  I understand that RDP is quite snappy, so you might find
that''s a
good solution - with the added bonus of being network transparent.

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

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