If I uncomment the vfb = [ 'type=sdl' ] line in my guests configuration file in /etc/xen and start it it pauses for a long time then gives the error Error: Device 0 (vkbd) could not be connected. Hotplug scripts not working. in xend.log there is the line DEBUG (vfbif:9) Spawn ['/usr/lib/xen/bin/xen-sdlfb'] which I believe indicates the problem since this file is no longer in the xen package (this is with xen-3.1.2-2.fc8) [As an aside I tried rebuilding the xen-3.2.0-10 package from fedora 9 on this machine and stealing a xen.gz file from fedora 9. With this the boot succeeded but it launched a vnc console rather than an sdl one.]
As a follow up to the aside, xen-3.2.1 does do sdl again (based on taking the xen-3.2.0-10.fc9 source package and the 3.2.1 tar ball, and editing the spec file to change the base_version and hv_build settings (since I might as well have a new hypervisor) and commenting out Patches 9, 16 and 17, then building it on Fedora 8).
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