Weblog entry #130 for ajt

Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt on Sun 6 Apr 2008 at 12:47

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I've now got my new home server running on Debian Lenny. I replaces my very old an very underpowered Sarge box. While I accept that Lenny is currently in testing and clearly isn't up to the standard of a stable release yet, there are quite a few things missing from Lenny that you would think by now would be in place...

Xen is not available yet, all the admin side stuff is in there, but there is no stock Xen host kernel yet - which is a bit of a pain as I had planned on using Xen on the new server. Instead I'm running kqemu and VirtualBox-ose instead which seem to work perfectly well, both working through the fake frame-buffer "Xvfb".

On my desktop system, also Lenny, nvidia drivers are not an option so I'm using the horribly sluggish xorg nv drivers. For most purposes it's okay, but I've had to disable my screen saver since switching from nvidia drivers to nv as the screen saver causes X to crash...

On the plus side I've managed to get NFSv4 working without kerberos support, it's actually dead easy to do and much faster than NVFv3 I think. Getting a kerberosised NFSv4 is proving more awkward...

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by daemon (146.231.xx.xx) on Sun 6 Apr 2008 at 22:23
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Odd, I'm running a Lenny install, and I've got xen running quite nicely (very nicely actually). I'm currently running a 2.6.18-3-xen kernel, but I've just noticed that there's a 2.6.24-1-xen available (and probably has been for a while), so I'll probably get that down and installed during the week somethime. Are you sure that you're not just missing some packages, the xen-hypervisor for instance?

If you want, I could post a cleaned/filtered `dpkg -l` output for you to compare yours with. Might help?

I can't comment on the NVidia problem though as I normally go native for those -- I've had issues with the repository provided NVidia packages (never got them to work right). However, I'd love to see some notes from your NFS4 setup, kerberised or not.

Cheers
:wq

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (204.193.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 08:57
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Thanks, I'll have another look, what packages do you have on the box? I do have the hypervisior package and Steve's tools, just not the base Xen kernel. I'll post my dpkg listing once I can get on the box.

NFSv4 notes will follow, it's actually not that hard.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (85.211.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 20:35
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Here we go:

libxenstore3.0 3.2.0-4
xen-hypervisor-3.2-1-amd64 3.2.0-4
xen-shell 1.8-3
xen-tools 3.9-2
xen-utils-3.2-1 3.2.0-4
xen-utils-common 3.2.0-2
xenstore-utils 3.2.0-4

linux-headers-2.6.24-1-amd64 2.6.24-5
linux-headers-2.6.24-1-common 2.6.24-5
linux-image-2.6.23-1-amd64 2.6.23-1~mtu1
linux-image-2.6.24-1-amd64 2.6.24-5
linux-kbuild-2.6.24 2.6.24-1

I can't find any AMD64 Xen kernels yet, unless I'm miss-reading how it all works.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by daemon (146.231.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 21:25
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Ah-ha! I think the amd64 is the key difference here, as I'm using on of the 686 kernels (namely "linux-image-2.6.18-3-xen-686") and it works a charm. I guess we will have to wait for all the 64bit goodness to arrive in due course.

Odd though, that the hypervisor is there and ready, and specifically amd64, but there are no xen kernels.

Cheers.
:wq

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#10

Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (85.211.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 21:36
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Indeed AMD64 not x86. It is strange that the hypervisor and all the bits are there but there are no Dom kernels.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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#11

Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by eric (82.252.xx.xx) on Tue 8 Apr 2008 at 18:22
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I run amd64 too on Xen with no problem.
A quick 'dpkg -l|grep xen' gives me:

ii  linux-headers-2.6-xen-amd64           2.6.18+6etch3                     Header files for Linux 2.6 on AMD64
ii  linux-headers-2.6.18-4-xen            2.6.18.dfsg.1-12etch2             Common header files for Linux 2.6.18
ii  linux-headers-2.6.18-4-xen-amd64      2.6.18.dfsg.1-12etch2             Header files for Linux 2.6.18 on AMD64
ii  linux-headers-2.6.18-6-xen            2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1             Common header files for Linux 2.6.18
ii  linux-headers-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64      2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1             Header files for Linux 2.6.18 on AMD64
ii  linux-image-2.6-xen-amd64             2.6.18+6etch3                     Linux kernel 2.6 image on AMD64
ii  linux-image-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64        2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1             Linux 2.6.18 image on AMD64
ii  linux-modules-2.6.18-4-xen-amd64      2.6.18.dfsg.1-12etch2             Linux 2.6.18 modules on AMD64
ii  linux-modules-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64      2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1             Linux 2.6.18 modules on AMD64
rc  nvidia-kernel-2.6.18-4-xen-amd64      100.14.11-1+2.6.18.dfsg.1-12etch2 NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 2.6.18-4-xen-amd64
ii  xen-hypervisor-3.0.3-1-amd64          3.0.3-0-4                         The Xen Hypervisor on AMD64
ii  xen-ioemu-3.0.3-1                     3.0.3-0-4                         XEN administrative tools
ii  xen-linux-system-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64   2.6.18.dfsg.1-18etch1             XEN system with Linux 2.6.18 image on AMD64
ii  xen-tools                             3.9-2                             Tools to manage Debian XEN virtual servers
ii  xen-utils-3.0.3-1                     3.0.3-0-4                         XEN administrative tools
ii  xen-utils-common                      3.1.0-1                           XEN administrative tools - common files

:eric:
http://blog.sietch-tabr.com

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#12

Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (85.211.xx.xx) on Tue 8 Apr 2008 at 22:52
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You are running Etch aren't you? Lenny has Xen 3.2 in it, except there isn't a kernel yet...

At the moment I've found VirtualBox-OSE works perfectly well, as does kqemu. I've yet to try kvm and obviously I can't try Xen.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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#13

Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by eric (194.2.xx.xx) on Wed 9 Apr 2008 at 08:54
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I'm running lenny now, but i upgraded from stable/etch. I thought i have upgraded all my packages and in particular xen ones, but it seems not (versions are labelled *etch[1|2])...

:eric:
http://blog.sietch-tabr.com

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#14

Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (204.193.xx.xx) on Wed 9 Apr 2008 at 09:12
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Ah, I've seen that before, you have something installed from stable, you upgrade to testing and because the some of the stable packages have no candidates in testing they are left in place. If you install testing fresh as I did, you find that there is no candidate to install so unless you manually install the packages from stable you are stuck.

I had a look in SID and it looks like there are no AMD64 linux/xen kernels available there either. I suspect that they are waiting for the kernel to stabilise for Lenny this autumn.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by diveli (150.101.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 00:08
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Hey ajt,

I installed Lenny over the weekend and got my nVidia drivers working no problem.

I installed using a weekly image from here:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/i386/iso-cd/

Here's what I did, running the default kernel installed, which was 2.6.24-1-686 :

# apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-2.6.24-1-686

Downloaded the nVidia driver:

wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/100.14.23/NVIDIA- Linux-x86-100.14.23-pkg1.run

Ran the installer. I ignored the gcc warning that appeared and chose 'Continue' and the install went smoothly from there.

Maybe that'll help you.

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (204.193.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 09:02
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Okay, your using the nvidia binaries directly. I've previously being use the Debian nvidia packages and running m-a a-i nvidia which automatically downloads and builds them. Perhaps I'll try the non-Debian way and see if that is any better.

I don't like sounding ungrateful, Debian is free and brilliant, and Lenny is testing after all at the moment, but sometimes running testing is "interesting".

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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Re: Debian Lenny

Posted by ajt (85.211.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 20:45
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Okay I rebuilt the standard kernel shim using module-assistant and then force installed the matching nvidia-glx module from SID. It my surprise it all worked, and my desktop is now working noticeable quicker and xscreensaver isn't crashing X any more.

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by Steve (82.41.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 18:56
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hehe. Debain. hehe.

hehe.

Steve

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Re: Debain Lenny

Posted by ajt (85.211.xx.xx) on Mon 7 Apr 2008 at 19:14
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Now you are picking on a dyslexic person... That's not fair!

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

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