Workstation 6 freeze on Federa 7 64 bit with kernel 2.6.22.1-41

[mqt]

I have a new Dell Dimension 9200 with Intel core 2 duo 6400 cpu.

I installed fedora 7 64 bit and upgrade the kernel to 2.6.22.1-41

Then I have vmware workstation 6 64 bit installed by rpm, but it does''t compile the kernel module so I got the newest any-any patch. Then I have it compile with no error message at all.

I create a new virtual machine and power it on, then the whole computer freez, nothing is responding any more. Only power button on the box is working.

It's the same thing as my other old virtual machine.

I have tried my workstation 5.5 version, same problem.

Any idea?

Thanks a lot

[KevinG]

Did you use Petr's vmware-any-any-update113 patch?

Were there any error when you ran vmware-config.pl?

[mqt]

I did you use Petr's vmware-any-any-update113 patch

and there's no error when I ran vmware-config.pl

but I just found it out the problem disappear if I turn off the VT in BIOS.

I thought I turn VT on to try the new virtual machine by KVM in fedora 7, but it seems the vmware doesn't like it.

I wonder if this is a common knowlegde or I found something new.

Thanks

Message was edited by:

mqt

[mqt]

I found further result.

The actual problem is the new kvm module in fedora 7

when VT is on, the kvm_intel module is inserted by default.

then vmware will freeze.

If VT is tunred off ( I heard for AMD, it's always on), the kvm_intel will fail to lanch so that vmware runs fine.

In summary, rmmod kvm_intel before you run vmware should alwasy do the trick.

now the question is when vmware will take advantage the VT in cpu?

Wil Kvm beat vmware someday?

[admin]

KVM does not "play well with others." It leaves the system in VMX root operation all of the time. When the system is in VMX root mode, paging cannot be disabled. The VMware world-switch code disables paging briefly when transitioning between 32-bit and 64-bit mode.

On current generation VT architectures, the hardware virtualization features offer no performance advantage for most workloads. See this ASPLOS paper[/url] for details.

[guansin]

You are my life saver. I have been searching on this problem for quite a while.

What I have is a Thinkpad T61 with Core 2 Duo CPU, and VT turned on in BIOS. So the same problem occurred to me - it would freeze whenever vmware is run and need a power cycle. A minute ago I just issued "rmmod kvm_intel" and vmware ran fine for the first time on my Fedora 7!

This problem seems to be specific to Fedora 7. I had tried with CentOS 5 (RHEL 5) on the same hardware and vmware ran just fine.

[mqt]

you are welcome.

But I think the problem is not related to any distribution.

It's the conflict between the KVM module and vmware.

[guansin]

I think you are quite right. kvm_intel is not included in CentOS 5 and therefore it works ok with vmware.

[filippobosi]

same for me. Running on kubuntu (same should be on ubuntu) Hardy Heron 8.04 w/vanilla kernel 2.6.24.3. You have to "rmmod kvm_intel" module. After doing that, VMWare no longer freezes the machine. Seems that kvm_intel module, if loaded, conflicts with VMWare