Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 73363
Running Loki Installer under Null as guest in VMware Workstation 3.1 can freeze host
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:46:18 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 Galeon/1.2.5 (X11; Linux i686; U;) Gecko/20020606 Description of problem: When I run Red Hat Linux Beta Null in the VMware Workstation 3.1, and then start the Loki Installer of the Loki Software's game "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri", either of the full version or the demo (that came along with Red Hat Linux 7.0), the host system freezes. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel 2.4.18-11, glibc 2.2.90-24 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install VMware Workstation 3.1.1-1790 2. Install Red Hat Linux Beta Null as guest 3. E. g. insert and mount the Loki Demo CD that came along with Red Hat Linux 7.0 and install /mnt/cdrom/smacx-demo-x86.run, or alternatively, the corresponding setup script if the full version CD is available. Actual Results: The host operating system freezes. The mouse pointer does not move and Ctrl-Alt-Fx do not work. This happens even if VMware Workstation runs under a virtual frame buffer X server and is being used by VNC. Therefore, the actual host freezes and not just the X server. Expected Results: The text mode Loki Installer of the demo version, or the graphical installer of the full version comes up. Additional info: This problem never occured in any previous Linux that I used under VMware (even recent ones, like SuSE Linux 8.0) and seems to be specific to the Beta Null. The host operating system is Red Hat Linux 7.2 with SGI XFS kernel (kernel version 2.4.9-31SGI_XFS_1.1, glibc version 2.2.4-29, VMware Workstation version 3.1.1-1790). I am really not sure which component should be attributed to. This problem could also be related to the glibc component.
How about reporting this bug to SGI since it's their kernel that crashes
I do not think that this is specific to the SGI kernel. I will try to run it on a stock Red Hat kernel.
I'm not sure that's useful; kernels with the vmware modules loaded I can't do a lot with generally.
The problem is that the Red Hat Linux Beta is the changing variable. As I have noted before, other Linux distributions that I ran as guest never exhibited such a behavior.
I have now checked the problem with a stock Red Hat Linux Beta Null as host. To my surprise, the problem seems to be disappeared. Also with the NVIDIA kernel module loaded, the lockup cannot be reproduced. However, since I also have the OSS modules from 4Front Technologies loaded in my Red Hat Linux 7.2 host (which produces the lockup) and there seems to be problems to get their modules run under a GCC 3 compiled kernel, I cannot tell whether SGI or 4Front Tech. is acutally to blame for the lockup. But since this is certainly not a problem caused by Red Hat software, I think we can close the report. Sorry for any inconveniences.