Now that I have been running Fedora 7 for a while I'm beginning to see its strengths and weaknesses.
One area that worries me slightly is what seems to be the 'normal' way of keeping it up to date which is to run 'yum update all' (or an equivalent) automatically at regular intervals.
Most of the time this works fairly smoothly but every so often there is a hiccough and you see as a result hundreds of messages in the Fedora mailing lists saying "it's broken".
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels.
So I don't update all the time now, at least not the kernel.
I'm wondering if there is a 'happy medium' somewhere between Slackware which was very conservative and stable (only went to a 2.6 kernal just recently) and Fedora which seems a bit frantically on the bleeding edge.
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
General requirements are:-
Not too "GUI and Windows oriented", Fedora is definitely as far as I'd want to go in this direction.
A reasonably good package management utility, Fedora's yum makes life a lot easier than Slackware.
I run FVWM2 as my window manager so any distribution that makes it difficult to do this is out!
Must run Vmware fairly smoothly, I think most probably will, Slackware was slightly messy because of its different initialisation script structure.
Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts. Running them via Vmware on my desktop is just *so* much nicer than running on a separate machine that I'll never go back. It's all well backed up and, if the Linux/Vmware goes completely pear shaped I could easily enough just put them on a dedicated machine so absolute reliability of Vmware isn't necessary.
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote:
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out there...
(Or, alternatively, Debian Stable... or if you want even closer to latest versions of graphical software, Ubuntu - hell, there's even a server variant now :p)
General requirements are:-
Not too "GUI and Windows oriented", Fedora is definitely as far as I'd want to go in this direction. A reasonably good package management utility, Fedora's yum makes life a lot easier than Slackware. I run FVWM2 as my window manager so any distribution that makes it difficult to do this is out! Must run Vmware fairly smoothly, I think most probably will, Slackware was slightly messy because of its different initialisation script structure.Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts. Running them via Vmware on my desktop is just *so* much nicer than running on a separate machine that I'll never go back. It's all well backed up and, if the Linux/Vmware goes completely pear shaped I could easily enough just put them on a dedicated machine so absolute reliability of Vmware isn't necessary.
So, if you want to continue on the rpm based distribution route you might want to consider CentOS, which is the Free version of RHEL.
Otherwise: Debian Stable (and for those really needed newer pieces of software, backports.org) Ubuntu Stable (though you'll probably end up pulling lots of things through universe/multiverse)
Also... the statement 'Not too "GUI and Windows oriented"' suggests that you're rather novice at using linux distributions overall, or are very used to just running an install and clicking the "typical" button - most distributions give a way of manually selecting what you want to install.
Thanks,
On 05/11/2007, Brett Parker iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote:
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out there...
But Slackware's been doing this for ages. Also, doesn't Ubuntu do this already? I can't believe that Fedora Core would not have this capability.
What I've found frustrating with Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu really), is that when doing updates, there is very little information about what's been fixed. Adept just doesn't seem to list the security CVE codes. Maybe I've missed it and need better glasses. Don't know much about Fedora's update mechanisms.
Srdjan
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 10:27:37AM +0000, Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
On 05/11/2007, Brett Parker iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote:
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out there...
But Slackware's been doing this for ages. Also, doesn't Ubuntu do this already? I can't believe that Fedora Core would not have this capability.
Slackware tends not to offer 'near latest', for example as I said it didn't offer a 2.6 series kernel as its default kernel until Slackware 12.
"Fedora Core" doesn't exist after FC6, version 7 is just Fedora 7 which I think reflects its change of philosophy.
What I've found frustrating with Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu really), is that when doing updates, there is very little information about what's been fixed. Adept just doesn't seem to list the security CVE codes. Maybe I've missed it and need better glasses. Don't know much about Fedora's update mechanisms.
You just do "yum update all" and it looks in the software repositories and updates everything that you have installed to the latest versions, kernel included. Alternatively you can update individual packages but there doesn't seem to be an "update just the things that really ought to be updated for security" option.
On 05/11/2007, Chris G cl@isbd.net wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 10:27:37AM +0000, Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
On 05/11/2007, Brett Parker iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote:
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out there...
But Slackware's been doing this for ages. Also, doesn't Ubuntu do this already?
Slackware tends not to offer 'near latest', for example as I said it didn't offer a 2.6 series kernel as its default kernel until Slackware 12.
True, but it has been 2.6-capable for a long long time and even had a 2.6 kernel ready and compiled in some of the later versions. All you need to do is not choose the default kernel... Slackware 12 is even better, newer KDE than the latest (at the time) Kubuntu. :)
What I've found frustrating with Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu really), is that when doing updates, there is very little information about what's been fixed. Adept just doesn't seem to list the security CVE codes. Maybe I've missed it and need better glasses. Don't know much about Fedora's update mechanisms.
You just do "yum update all" and it looks in the software repositories and updates everything that you have installed to the latest versions, kernel included. Alternatively you can update individual packages but there doesn't seem to be an "update just the things that really ought to be updated for security" option.
Lucky I don't run Fedora Core then :)
Srdjan
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 10:11:26AM +0000, Brett Parker wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:45:59AM +0000, Chris G wrote:
Is there a distribution which offers pretty close to latest versions of everything when it releases but then just maintains things with only security updates and such until the next release?
I believe that is the goal of most of the Enterprise versions out there...
Yes, but they tend to cost money don't they? :-)
(Or, alternatively, Debian Stable... or if you want even closer to latest versions of graphical software, Ubuntu - hell, there's even a server variant now :p)
I've played with Ubuntu a couple of times, but the versions are rather strongly tied to their window managers. I suppose I could try Ubuntu Server and install fvwm2.
General requirements are:-
Not too "GUI and Windows oriented", Fedora is definitely as far as I'd want to go in this direction. A reasonably good package management utility, Fedora's yum makes life a lot easier than Slackware. I run FVWM2 as my window manager so any distribution that makes it difficult to do this is out! Must run Vmware fairly smoothly, I think most probably will, Slackware was slightly messy because of its different initialisation script structure.Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts. Running them via Vmware on my desktop is just *so* much nicer than running on a separate machine that I'll never go back. It's all well backed up and, if the Linux/Vmware goes completely pear shaped I could easily enough just put them on a dedicated machine so absolute reliability of Vmware isn't necessary.
So, if you want to continue on the rpm based distribution route you might want to consider CentOS, which is the Free version of RHEL.
OK, I may well take a look, thank you.
Otherwise: Debian Stable (and for those really needed newer pieces of software, backports.org) Ubuntu Stable (though you'll probably end up pulling lots of things through universe/multiverse)
Also... the statement 'Not too "GUI and Windows oriented"' suggests that you're rather novice at using linux distributions overall, or are very used to just running an install and clicking the "typical" button - most distributions give a way of manually selecting what you want to install.
I've been using Linux for ten years or more, if my memory serves I started with RedHat, then went to Mandrake (as it was then) for a short while, then Suse 7.3, the Slackware for some years (versions 9, 10 and 11 at least) and now I'm on Fedora.
Yes, I *can* install Fedora and then stick at that kernel level in particular but it means that you are soon quite a way behind where everyone else is and help/support becomes more difficult.
Chris G wrote:
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware.
FOSS answer: Move to open source alternatives that don't have that problem! Intel have released their drivers, ATI are heading that way. And there are open-source alternatives to VMWare.
Pragmatic answer: Ubuntu has the Nvidia drivers in its repositories so they're not an issue; they usually keep pace with the Kernel updates and on the odd occassions where they haven't (I think I've only seen that when playing with pre-release versions) their dependencies prevent the kernel getting updated.
VMWare had a similar solution in Ubuntu 7.04; the kernel modules were in the repositories, and the server package itself was in Canonical's "commercial" repo. This seems to have changed in 7.10 without explanation (that I've found), so you're back to the same problem you're already used to. In my case I decided to trial VirtualBox over the weekend and found it works just as well (if not better) in many cases, and is in the repositories. It is open source but includes closed source components (its equivalent of VMWare Tools) with the latter free for personal use but trialware for commercial use (I've not found the pricing yet for commercial use, so far I'm only using it at home).
Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts.
VirtualBox has a nice feature that allows the virtual machine's desktop to be hidden, so that the applications on it (eg Access) appear more or less as native applications on your desktop alongside other Linux apps.
I've not tried Wine with Access but I assume you've already ruled that out?
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 10:22:37AM +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
Chris G wrote:
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware.
FOSS answer: Move to open source alternatives that don't have that problem! Intel have released their drivers, ATI are heading that way. And there are open-source alternatives to VMWare.
Pragmatic answer: Ubuntu has the Nvidia drivers in its repositories so they're not an issue; they usually keep pace with the Kernel updates and on the odd occassions where they haven't (I think I've only seen that when playing with pre-release versions) their dependencies prevent the kernel getting updated.
Yes, Ubuntu does seem in many ways to offer much of what I want.
VMWare had a similar solution in Ubuntu 7.04; the kernel modules were in the repositories, and the server package itself was in Canonical's "commercial" repo. This seems to have changed in 7.10 without explanation (that I've found), so you're back to the same problem you're already used to. In my case I decided to trial VirtualBox over the weekend and found it works just as well (if not better) in many cases, and is in the repositories. It is open source but includes closed source components (its equivalent of VMWare Tools) with the latter free for personal use but trialware for commercial use (I've not found the pricing yet for commercial use, so far I'm only using it at home).
Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts.
VirtualBox has a nice feature that allows the virtual machine's desktop to be hidden, so that the applications on it (eg Access) appear more or less as native applications on your desktop alongside other Linux apps.
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
I've not tried Wine with Access but I assume you've already ruled that out?
While Access is my major need there's enough other bits and pieces (e.g. web sites that only work with IE, odd word documents that won't open in OO) that a 'real' Windows XP is the easiest solution.
I think I'll go and take a serious look at Ubuntu again.
Chris G wrote:
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
Yes to all that. It does some things better, others not so well, from what I can tell so far.
Stuff like shared folders (which the freebie VMWare stuff doesn't support) are there, for example.
If its home use and you go with the free-beer-not-speech version you get other stuff like USB support (inc USB2), client-server model like VMWare Server, including remote USB support. I've not tried any of that, so I have no idea how good it is, and it may be that by losing the free-as-in-speech you also lose the kernel update flexibility. (I'm very new to VirtualBox as I mentioned!)
VirtualBox has downloads for Fedora if you want to try it: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
While Access is my major need there's enough other bits and pieces (e.g. web sites that only work with IE, odd word documents that won't open in OO) that a 'real' Windows XP is the easiest solution.
IE on Wine is easy (and means you can have IE6 and IE7's rendering engines on the same PC for development tests), but I wouldn't know about VirtualBox and VMWare if I didn't know where you were coming from!
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 11:47:48AM +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
Chris G wrote:
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
Yes to all that. It does some things better, others not so well, from what I can tell so far.
Stuff like shared folders (which the freebie VMWare stuff doesn't support) are there, for example.
If its home use and you go with the free-beer-not-speech version you get other stuff like USB support (inc USB2), client-server model like VMWare Server, including remote USB support. I've not tried any of that, so I have no idea how good it is, and it may be that by losing the free-as-in-speech you also lose the kernel update flexibility. (I'm very new to VirtualBox as I mentioned!)
VirtualBox has downloads for Fedora if you want to try it: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
OK, thanks. I currently have Vmware Workstation, recently upgraded to version 6.01. It's worth the cost for the simplicity for me, but if VirtualBox is somewhere near the same place then I'm very happy to save some money! :-)
While Access is my major need there's enough other bits and pieces (e.g. web sites that only work with IE, odd word documents that won't open in OO) that a 'real' Windows XP is the easiest solution.
IE on Wine is easy (and means you can have IE6 and IE7's rendering engines on the same PC for development tests), but I wouldn't know about VirtualBox and VMWare if I didn't know where you were coming from!
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Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts.
VirtualBox has a nice feature that allows the virtual machine's desktop to be hidden, so that the applications on it (eg Access) appear more or less as native applications on your desktop alongside other Linux apps.
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
There's a handout comparing the biggest three free virtual machine offerings available from the September ALUG Ipswich meeting notes, which lists some of the pros and cons between them.
http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/IpswichMeetingNotes
I use VirtualBox OSE, and it is incredibly useful.
Peter.
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 02:34:33PM +0000, samwise wrote:
Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts.
VirtualBox has a nice feature that allows the virtual machine's desktop to be hidden, so that the applications on it (eg Access) appear more or less as native applications on your desktop alongside other Linux apps.
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
There's a handout comparing the biggest three free virtual machine offerings available from the September ALUG Ipswich meeting notes, which lists some of the pros and cons between them.
Excellent description, very useful! Thank you.
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 14:34 +0000, samwise wrote:
There's a handout comparing the biggest three free virtual machine offerings available from the September ALUG Ipswich meeting notes, which lists some of the pros and cons between them.
I have always kicked myself for missing that meeting as although I have used VMware for a very long time I have not spent a lot of time looking at alternatives.
I am interested though as to why there was no mention of the VMware p2v converters in the product comparison. I would say that this is one of the most significant advantages VMware has over the (free) competition and is something that even MS Virtual Server can't do without 3rd party help. Also it is worth mention if only because of it's cleverness.
Did you feel that converting physical Windows machines to Virtual ones was beyond the scope of the demonstration or perhaps more suited to another evening ?
I have always kicked myself for missing that meeting as although I have used VMware for a very long time I have not spent a lot of time looking at alternatives.
Yes, it was a shame you weren't there (see below).
I am interested though as to why there was no mention of the VMware p2v converters in the product comparison.
I guess you're looking for a more complicated reason than I didn't know of their existence? :) If you'd been there we could have discussed a use case I hadn't been thinking about!
I would say that this is one of the most significant advantages VMware has over the (free) competition and is something that even MS Virtual Server can't do without 3rd party help. Also it is worth mention if only because of it's cleverness.
Looking into it now, it looks like it has been replaced by the freeware VMware Converter Starter tool.
Did you feel that converting physical Windows machines to Virtual ones was beyond the scope of the demonstration or perhaps more suited to another evening ?
Not at all, it's just not a use case I've ever really had and, to be honest, I had no idea there was a specific tool to clone an active system!
That said, given that I assume the resulting virtual machine would take up as much disk space as the original system, I can't see I would be using it much - I don't have that much disk space to spare!
Certainly it would be fiddly to convert an active system to VirtualBox. In fact, probably the easiest solution might be to use the VMware Converter Starter tool to get to a .VMX and then convert that to VirtualBox's format - there is information on how to do that on the VirtualBox site, though the process doesn't look brilliantly user-friendly.
I did try to pull out that one of VMware's greatest strengths was the defacto standard of the .VMX virtual machines, as well as the ability to import MS Virtual Server formats.
Basically, I concluded that VirtualBox edges it overall, for personal use, (the seamless Windows feature - demo'd at October's meet - is fantastic) and is mostly GPL too but that if you need to collaborate with lots of other people or have to distribute your machines, then it's worth considering VMware Player. It's just so time consuming and bandwidth hungry to have to rely on sites like EasyVMX to get a blank machine, tho ...
Peter.
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 22:27 +0000, samwise wrote:
I guess you're looking for a more complicated reason than I didn't know of their existence? :) If you'd been there we could have discussed a use case I hadn't been thinking about!
:) fair enough..we tend to use VMware for hosting DR or test systems so I am guessing we would have had more exposure to the p2v stuff.
Looking into it now, it looks like it has been replaced by the freeware VMware Converter Starter tool.
Yes there are two versions of the Converter tool, a freeware one and a paid for one..key differences are that the freeware one doesn't manage multiple migrations at the same time and cannot do an offline (Boot CD) conversion which is a lot faster for systems that can suffer the downtime.
Not at all, it's just not a use case I've ever really had and, to be honest, I had no idea there was a specific tool to clone an active system!
It sort of works a bit like magic..you run the tool from either the host or the (to be)guest or even from another machine in the middle and it creates a VM copy of the machine, substituting device drivers etc on route. Takes a while on busy machines and due to the specific way things like sql databases and exchange stores are mounted requires that you still take clean offline copes of those. Well worth playing with though I even used it so that the Windows VM on my laptop is a clone of the original XP installation.
You can still do things offline because another facility is to create a VM from a ghost image of the original machine, this is in fact how I created my laptop VM..from the Windows recovery media that contained a ghost image of the original installation.
That said, given that I assume the resulting virtual machine would take up as much disk space as the original system, I can't see I would be using it much - I don't have that much disk space to spare!
It can on the fly resize the volume to be copied down to any size larger than the current used space in the windows partition and then generate it as a VM image that grows as needed (having images that grow does however have a performance impact in VMware)
Certainly it would be fiddly to convert an active system to VirtualBox.
Yes before the conversion tool worked we attempted ghosting physical machines into virtual machines and it was often fraught with the same problems you often get moving a Windows installation to different hardware. Sometimes it works with minimal effort, sometimes it boots into a BSOD and needs a repair installation and sometimes something so significant has changed that hardly any amount of poking will fix it. Generally we would eventually succeed but at a time cost greater than it would have been to build the system from scratch.
Basically, I concluded that VirtualBox edges it overall, for personal use, (the seamless Windows feature - demo'd at October's meet - is fantastic) and is mostly GPL too but that if you need to collaborate with lots of other people or have to distribute your machines, then it's worth considering VMware Player. It's just so time consuming and bandwidth hungry to have to rely on sites like EasyVMX to get a blank machine, tho ...
Yes although of course you can download vmware server and vmware player creating machines in server that can then be booted in player..but then we are getting a bit messy. I will however give VirtualBox a try as it may be better option than Vmware Server for me at home and given the number of VMware licences we already have I am hesitant to purchase another workstation licence just for home use.
Yes, it definitely looks like a useful tool. Wrt the commercial version of it, tho, for the Sept. meet I did strictly limit myself to comparing the freebie tools (even if they were only free-as-in-beer). The VMware Converter Starter tool looks like it would have most of what you'd need outside a commercial environment, tho, without the need to buy a license for the enterprise version.
Hmm .. will definitely bear it in mind, if that use case comes up for me.
Peter.
On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 12:36:26AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 22:27 +0000, samwise wrote:
[snip]
It can on the fly resize the volume to be copied down to any size larger than the current used space in the windows partition and then generate it as a VM image that grows as needed (having images that grow does however have a performance impact in VMware)
This interests me as I currently have a 'non-growable' disk for my XP guest and I wondered how much slower it would be if I changed that to a 'growable' disk. Have you any sort of handle on how much slower the growable disks are?
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 10:22 +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
VMWare had a similar solution in Ubuntu 7.04; the kernel modules were in the repositories, and the server package itself was in Canonical's "commercial" repo. This seems to have changed in 7.10 without explanation (that I've found)
Hmm yes I noticed that too I am guessing that some licencing restriction got in the way..pity though it was a bit of a boon to not have to do the vmware-config dance after a kernel update.
On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Chris G wrote:
One area that worries me slightly is what seems to be the 'normal' way of keeping it up to date which is to run 'yum update all' (or an equivalent) automatically at regular intervals.
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels.
Have you considered dispensing with Fedora stock kernels, and compiling your own? That way, you'd control the frequency of kernel upgrades.
Which brings me neatly on to a problem of my own. The above worked for me until a few days ago, when the process of upgrading from FC6 to Fedora 7 automagically installed a stock kernel. No package will admit responsibility for the kernel image in question via "yum provides." Anyone have any ideas what package I need to remove to get rid of said kernel image, please?
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 12:11:40PM +0000, Dan Hatton wrote:
On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Chris G wrote:
One area that worries me slightly is what seems to be the 'normal' way of keeping it up to date which is to run 'yum update all' (or an equivalent) automatically at regular intervals.
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels.
Have you considered dispensing with Fedora stock kernels, and compiling your own? That way, you'd control the frequency of kernel upgrades.
I did compile my own kernels on Slackware because (especially recently) my hardware was ahead of where the available Slackware kernels were.
However I was really aiming for a 'simpler life' and compiling kernels is one of the things I'd prefer not to do really.
Which brings me neatly on to a problem of my own. The above worked for me until a few days ago, when the process of upgrading from FC6 to Fedora 7 automagically installed a stock kernel. No package will admit responsibility for the kernel image in question via "yum provides." Anyone have any ideas what package I need to remove to get rid of said kernel image, please?
Hmmm! "yum provides kernel" certainly returns the kernels I have on my system, plus a few which it offers from 'fedora' and 'updates'.
On 05/11/2007, Chris G cl@isbd.net wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 12:11:40PM +0000, Dan Hatton wrote:
Have you considered dispensing with Fedora stock kernels, and compiling your own? That way, you'd control the frequency of kernel upgrades.
I did compile my own kernels on Slackware because (especially recently) my hardware was ahead of where the available Slackware kernels were.
Oh? What versions?
However I was really aiming for a 'simpler life' and compiling kernels is one of the things I'd prefer not to do really.
But surely you would understand that, you would only need to compile a newish kernel once (or at most once in a while), so really there isn't such a massive overhead.
And you could've used the new-ish 2.6 kernels that come with Slackware. It's all pre-compiled and ready to use. Pat's been doing that for a while AFAIK.
I've always been wary of distro kernels. Often they come patched up with more fluff than the dust in-between my old CPU fan. Makes diagnosing (and applying debug patches from kernel developers) harder.
In fact, slapt-get, the Slackware imitation of apt-get, seems to default to not updating the kernel, and I think that's possibly a good idea. Updating kernels for security reasons *is* a good idea, but how would slapt-get/apt-get/yum know that I've applied my own special driver patch that I desperately need?
Srdjan
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 06:22:27PM +0000, Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
On 05/11/2007, Chris G cl@isbd.net wrote:
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 12:11:40PM +0000, Dan Hatton wrote:
Have you considered dispensing with Fedora stock kernels, and compiling your own? That way, you'd control the frequency of kernel upgrades.
I did compile my own kernels on Slackware because (especially recently) my hardware was ahead of where the available Slackware kernels were.
Oh? What versions?
It was about a year ago when I bought new hardware (that I'm still running), the default Slackware 2.6 kernel didn't support the Jmicron 'legacy' IDE interface nor the Realtek RTL8168 ethernet on my motherboard.
However I was really aiming for a 'simpler life' and compiling kernels is one of the things I'd prefer not to do really.
But surely you would understand that, you would only need to compile a newish kernel once (or at most once in a while), so really there isn't such a massive overhead.
It's still time I could spend doing other things. :-)
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 09:45 +0000, Chris G wrote:
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels.
Erm if the kernel version is changing on automatic updates (i.e 2.6.x) then yum update is even more broken than I suspected.
If the kernel version isn't changing and it is just the same kernel version with security fixes applied then I can honestly say that since running VMware from version < 1.0 I have never ever had that problem. The VMware modules have always built again for me when a new kernel package has been released.
Ubuntu and Debian will not increment the kernel version unless you explicitly allow it with dist-upgrade (AFAIK)
Also given that you are an a paid product, if you do have problems with new kernels on a distribution then generally an email to VMware support will be meet with a kind thank you for telling them if they don't already know and generally in my experience a patch for you to try within 24 hours. Even when I had old versions of Workstation on 64bit machines before Workstation supported AMD64 these patches were always forthcoming and any feedback I had gratefully received.
Generally however I find that applying the latest updates from VMware to your product will have it working on any stock distro kernel. I have never needed to resort to these 3rd party patches you speak of
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 07:52:11PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 09:45 +0000, Chris G wrote:
For me one of the major disadvantages of this approach is that when the kernel gets updated (which is quite frequently) I have to recompile both my Nvidia display drivers and Vmware. The Vmware recompile can be a bit difficult as Vmware is only guaranteed to build against certain kernel versions and you often have to use third-party patches to get it to compile with more recent kernels.
Erm if the kernel version is changing on automatic updates (i.e 2.6.x) then yum update is even more broken than I suspected.
Well when I ran a "yum update" it certainly updated the kernel. It leaves one previous version in the grub menu so you can select the previous version if the new one fails. I think I've seen about four kernel versions since I first installed Fedora 7 a couple of months ago.
If I do "yum list updates kernel" now it says:-
kernel.x86_64 2.6.23.1-10.fc7 updates
Since I'm at 2.6.22.9091.fc7 at the moment that looks like an update to me.
If the kernel version isn't changing and it is just the same kernel version with security fixes applied then I can honestly say that since running VMware from version < 1.0 I have never ever had that problem. The VMware modules have always built again for me when a new kernel package has been released.
Ubuntu and Debian will not increment the kernel version unless you explicitly allow it with dist-upgrade (AFAIK)
Also given that you are an a paid product, if you do have problems with new kernels on a distribution then generally an email to VMware support will be meet with a kind thank you for telling them if they don't already know and generally in my experience a patch for you to try within 24 hours. Even when I had old versions of Workstation on 64bit machines before Workstation supported AMD64 these patches were always forthcoming and any feedback I had gratefully received.
If you do a search for "vmware workstation 6 kernel 2.6.22" on Google you will get a *lot* of hits and it seems that there most definitely isn't an official Vmware patch. In fact I'm sure I found somewhere a pointer to the third-party patch for 2.6.22 actually from the Vmware site saying something like "try this if you like, it might work" (fortunately it does!).
Generally however I find that applying the latest updates from VMware to your product will have it working on any stock distro kernel. I have never needed to resort to these 3rd party patches you speak of
It'll work with the kernel that distribution X starts with but Vmware don't seem to attempt to keep up with kernels as they happen.
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 20:17 +0000, Chris G wrote:
I think I've seen about four kernel versions since I first installed Fedora 7 a couple of months ago.
If I do "yum list updates kernel" now it says:-
kernel.x86_64 2.6.23.1-10.fc7 updatesSince I'm at 2.6.22.9091.fc7 at the moment that looks like an update to me.
Well all I can say to that is ewwwww, glad I don't run Fedora..4 kernel versions in a few months !
I think I am happier sticking to a distro that applies security fixes to the existing kernel version rather than jumping versions whenever it feels like it, particularly if this is going to happen at the frequency you suggest.
If you do a search for "vmware workstation 6 kernel 2.6.22" on Google you will get a *lot* of hits and it seems that there most definitely isn't an official Vmware patch. In fact I'm sure I found somewhere a pointer to the third-party patch for 2.6.22 actually from the Vmware site saying something like "try this if you like, it might work" (fortunately it does!).
Interesting given that I am writing this on a machine that is running 2.6.22 and happily installed vmware server with no poking around whatsoever. Was it specific to some distros or specific to VMware workstation (which I run on my laptop which is still on feisty and therefore 2.6.20 ) ?
Glad you mentioned this as I was about to upgrade my laptop to Gutsy and had made the assumption that if vmware server was working on 2.6.22 then so would workstation.
On 05-Nov-07 21:12:57, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Well all I can say to that is ewwwww, glad I don't run Fedora..4 kernel versions in a few months !
I think I am happier sticking to a distro that applies security fixes to the existing kernel version rather than jumping versions whenever it feels like it, particularly if this is going to happen at the frequency you suggest.
Which distro are you using, Wayne? It looks as though it might be Ubuntu.
Regarding the VMWare/virtualbox discussion:
I've been using an old VMWare for years (getting on for 10 now). It has worked fine with win98 (though I managed to break its bridged networking a while back when I switched my LAN from 192.168.0.* to 192.168.1.* because that's where my ADSL router lives). I'd been wondering about installing an ungrade.
Recently I got a new laptop (yes, one of those Currys cheapos but it's got a good spec and has worked very solidly so far) with Vista on it. So I've been wondering what version of Linux to put on it (my most recent to data being Red Hat 9 from 2003).
I came across virtualbox by accident, and after visiting the website decided to give it a try (one can always zap it if not satisfied).
I've found it to be excellent. Very simple to set up (in the windows version at least), and just about "runs out of the box". It links very nicely into the host hardware interfaces.
I've now set up 3 VMs. Each has a 20GB "virtual hard drive" file on the 120GB "real hard drive" and gets 256MB of RAM whe running.
I've installed (or tried to install) various Linux distributions, and am enjoying the experience. I currently have Debian 4.0 (Etch), Ubuntu 7.10, and Fedora 7. I've also had Slackware and Gentoo on.
Of the three, I seem to be getting most mileage out of Ubuntu. I have difficulties with the Debian finding its repositories, and Fedora (very recently installed, so maybe I have some getting-used-to to do; though I expected it to be more like Red Hat 9 than it turns out to be).
I'd be interested in anyone's comments!
best wishes to all, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) ted.harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 05-Nov-07 Time: 22:08:25 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 09:12:57PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 20:17 +0000, Chris G wrote:
I think I've seen about four kernel versions since I first installed Fedora 7 a couple of months ago.
If I do "yum list updates kernel" now it says:-
kernel.x86_64 2.6.23.1-10.fc7 updatesSince I'm at 2.6.22.9091.fc7 at the moment that looks like an update to me.
Well all I can say to that is ewwwww, glad I don't run Fedora..4 kernel versions in a few months !
I think I am happier sticking to a distro that applies security fixes to the existing kernel version rather than jumping versions whenever it feels like it, particularly if this is going to happen at the frequency you suggest.
If you do a search for "vmware workstation 6 kernel 2.6.22" on Google you will get a *lot* of hits and it seems that there most definitely isn't an official Vmware patch. In fact I'm sure I found somewhere a pointer to the third-party patch for 2.6.22 actually from the Vmware site saying something like "try this if you like, it might work" (fortunately it does!).
Interesting given that I am writing this on a machine that is running 2.6.22 and happily installed vmware server with no poking around whatsoever. Was it specific to some distros or specific to VMware workstation (which I run on my laptop which is still on feisty and therefore 2.6.20 ) ?
I suspect it's specifically Workstation but I'm not totally sure.
Glad you mentioned this as I was about to upgrade my laptop to Gutsy and had made the assumption that if vmware server was working on 2.6.22 then so would workstation.
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