Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 136018
Cannot run FC3T3 with included kernel on Virtual PC 2004
Last modified: 2015-01-04 17:10:46 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1 Description of problem: After installing Fedora Core 3 Test 3, when you reboot the system will not function properly. Most commands entered at command prompt cause a segmentation fault. System never proceeds to the next stage of the graphical install where you accept the license agreement. Replacing the included kernel with a custom kernel allows system to work. Something in the configuration or perhaps a non-mainline patch is incompatible with Virtual PC. This should be isolated and corrected. I would be glad to help in any way. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.8-1.541 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install Fedora Core 3 Test 3 under Virtual PC 2004 Actual Results: Segmentation Fault after reboot. Expected Results: Boot/startup normally and proceed to next stage of graphical install. Additional info: The kernel on the rescue ISO works fine. Reference Bugs #119838 and #124251. Work-around procedure: Fedora Core 3 Test 3 Install Instructions 1. Download the 4 ISO images AND the rescue image. 2. Download fedora3.zip (http://www.sandersweb.net/david/virtualpc/fedora3.zip) This contains the kernel, initial ram disk, and config files. 3. Place fedora3.zip in a shared folder (so we can get at it later via SAMBA). 4. Create a Virtual Machine 5. Boot from the first ISO image. 6. Press <ENTER> at the boot prompt for graphical install. 7. Skip testing media (or test if you want). 8. Select next to continue. 9. Select "Install Anyway" 10. Select language (english) 11. Select keyboard (us) 12. Select installation type (workstation) 13. Select disk partitioning (auto) 14. Click <YES> at warning 15. Select "Remove all partitions on this system" and check "Review (and modify) partitions created" 16. Click <YES> at warning 17. Highlight "VolGroup00" and click delete 18. Highlight /dev/hda2 and click delete 19. click new, select mount point /, type ext3, size 15850 fixed, click OK 20. click new, select type swap, size 400 "fill to max allow size", click OK 21. click NEXT 22. at boot loader screen click next 23. configure network device - configure using DHCP (or assign IP address) - activate on boot - set hostname (whatever) 24. configure firewall - enable - allow http,ftp,ssh (or whatever) - SELinux active 25. Set default language (english) Select any required additional languages 26. Select time zone (whatever) 27. Set root password 28. Select "Customize software packages to be installed" 29. Select packages (whatever, but ensure you select "Windows File Server" because we need samba) 30. Click next to start install then click continue 31. <formats file system> 32. <installs packages> (capture other CDs when prompted) 33. When install is complete, use the VPC menu to capture the rescue disk then click reboot 34. At the boot prompt press enter for rescue mode 35. choose language (english) 36. choose keyboard (us) 37. choose <YES> to "Do you want to start network...?" 38. Select configure using DHCP (or enter IP address) 39. Select continue to find install 40. Select <OK> to continue 41. You are now at a shell prompt Type: chroot /mnt/sysimage 42. Type: smbclient //win2ksvr/Share -U david but replace "win2ksvr" with the name of your host computer replace "Share" with the name of your shared folder and replace "david" with your username on the host. 43. enter password for host computer if prompted to do so 44. Type: get fedora3.zip 45. Type: quit 46. Type: unzip -o fedora3.zip 47. Release the rescue ISO from the VPC menu 48. Type: exit (twice) 49. <reboots> 50. Select 1st kernel from the grub menu 51. <startup and enter graphical setup program> 52. Click next 53. accept license agreement 54. set date and time and enable ntp (if you want) 55. Display Setup (you can leave this as is for now) 56. Establish user account 57. <additional CDs> - click next <finish setup> - click next 58. <Continues startup> 59. Login 60. <All is well with the world>
Created attachment 105738 [details] Screenshot of Fedora Core 3 Test 3 running under Virtual PC 2004
Having experimented with this previously in FC3Test1, it appears that Virtual PC does not deal well with the 4G/4G kernel (e.g., CONFIG_X86_4G = Y). Could we have an alternate kernel package with this option turned off?
The .i586 kernel doesn't have 4G/4G built in (while .i686 does).
I have confirmed that the 4G/4G patch is the problem. A kernel that is identical in every way except having 4G/4G mode disabled works. I will have instructions and a kernel for Fedora Core 3 when it is released. For the future, perhaps we could have a kernel-vpc package that doesn't have 4g4g and installs by default if inside of a virtual machine. I'm not sure why we need a 4g4g kernel as default anyway. I would suggest that if the amount of memory is less than 1G, we not install a 4g4g kernel anyway. The documentation says there is a 20% performace hit by using it. What do you think?
which documentation states that ? The hit is much less than you think. SELinux for example probably adds more overhead.
> which documentation states that? [barryn@localhost redhat]$ rpmbuild -bp --target i686 SPECS/kernel-2.6.spec [ snip... ] [barryn@localhost redhat]$ cd BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/ [barryn@localhost linux-2.6.9]$ make menuconfig [ snip... ] Processor type and features ---> <Select> [*] 4 GB kernel-space and 4 GB user-space virtual memory support <Help> grep shows that the documentation there is in arch/i386/Kconfig. Here's the relevant quote -- pay particular attention to the last sentence: >The cost of this option is additional TLB flushes done at >system-entry points that transition from user-mode into kernel-mode. >I.e. system calls and page faults, and IRQs that interrupt user-mode >code. There's also additional overhead to kernel operations that copy >memory to/from user-space. The overhead from this is hard to tell and >depends on the workload - it can be anything from no visible overhead >to 20-30% overhead. A good rule of thumb is to count with a runtime >overhead of 20%.
Whilst you can construct a microbenchmark to show such a large degradation, in real-world applications, the overhead is much lower. That help-text needs updating.
You can probably identify some workloads that 4g4g significantly helps. But for most uses on the desktop it is not needed. I am just suggesting that the default kernel doesn't need to be 4g4g. Or at least I am not aware of any reason for it to be so. Perhaps we could agree to a i686 kernel without 4g4g being installable from the CD as an option during installation.
theres actually been some internal discussion over the last week or so whether or not to ship it as default any more. For FC4, its likely that the default kernel wont be 4g/4g for a number of reasons. I'm also pondering doing the same to the next FC2/FC3 kernel update.
*** Bug 131037 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 124251 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 119838 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 144023 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 145696 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 147250 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Thanks, Warren, for steering me to this bug report. I'd like to report that the kernel in http://www.sandersweb.net/david/virtualpc/fedora3.zip recommended above did *not* work for me, but the kernel in the i586 RPM did work.
Brian, the fedira3.zip is only applicable to Fedora Core 3-Test 3. You should not be using it on the final Core 3 code. See vpc.visualwin.com for instruction related to the final release.
*** Bug 158385 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***