Ubuntu 64-bit won't boot/install on ESXi 4.0 - Yes, Paravirtualisation is off

[victorhooi]

heya,

I have VMWare ESXi 4.0 U1 installed on a Dell Precision 490 workstation (with dual Xeon 2.00Ghz 5130 processors).

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 10.04 RC 64-bit onto this box, however, when I boot up the installation media, I get:

"This kernel requires an x86-64 cpu but only detected an i686 cpu.
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU."

I did some searching, and I saw this thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/146242

and this article:

However, I checked, I definitely don't have Paravirtulisation on, and I also set up this VM as a Custom machine, selecting Ubuntu 64-bit as the type.

Anything else?

Cheers,

Victor

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

You may have already checked this but have you enabled VT in the BIOS and then done a cold restart after that? You can use this utility to check if you should be able to run 64 bit guests. Do you have other 64 bit guests running?

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/cpu_identification_utility/ZHcqYmR0dGhidGR3

[Borja_Mari]

Hi,

i would recommend you to check carefully this post.

Hope this helps

Regards/Saludos,

Pablo

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Virtually noob blog

[victorhooi]

heya,

It turns out I needed to turn on VT in the BIOS. It was off by default (why is it off by default?). Weird.

Also, it's strange that it being off completely stymied me running a 64-bit OS on VMWare, I had thought it was only an optional add-on, that sped up performance, or that allowed running 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host.

Cheers,

Victor

[Borja_Mari]

Hi,

this isn't a standard on the BIOS. Sometimes by default is enabled. Sometimes isn't.

Enabling the Intel VT isn't a a really big performance enchantment on the host side, but it's a requirement to be able to run 64 bits virtual machines.

BTW the 64 bits virtual machines usually performs the same of better than 32 bits in some situations. For example 64 bits systems works better than 32 bits when the system has more tan 4 GB. The 64 bits operating systems are the future.

You can search the net to know the advantages of running 64 instead 32 bits.

Regards/Saludos,

Pablo

Please consider awarding any helpful or corrrect answer. Thanks!! - Por favor considera premiar cualquier respuesta útil o correcta. ¡¡Muchas gracias!!

Virtually noob blog