2010/6/11 (रेवंत) Revant Nandgaonkar revant.one@gmail.com:

I think my AMD Phenom 9650 Quad Core Processor + Gigabyte MA78GM-S2HP Mobo will work Got it from lam rd.

/proc/cpuinfo: ... flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp  lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx1 6 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy _______svm_______ extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs

Thanks. The CPU has "svm" flag. Can you please check the BIOS and see if there is a setting for "Virtualization"? The Intel desktop mobos do.

-- Arun Khan

On Saturday 12 June 2010 12:41:26 Arun Khan wrote:

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 12:22 PM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:

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On Friday 11 June 2010 20:09:58 Arun Khan wrote:

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I want to try the AMD platform for a desktop system,  I can search the web and come up with a combo but it may not be readily available @ Lam Rd.

Please suggest a combo that can be readily sourced in Mumbai.

ASUS M4A785D-M PRO. Warning needs kernel >2.6.3x and X >= the one in Ubuntu 9.10.

Thanks for the mobo ref. but what about CPU? Also, have you tried Linux KVM in this setup?

Phenom, Phenom2, Athlon, Athlon2, Sempron, AM2, AM2+, AM3. SVM enable in bios. No I havn't tried virtualization. But i did read somewhere that it is capable. Do google before putting your money.

For example on the Intel systems that I have, the mobo BIOS have "Virtualization" Enabled/Disabled option. In disabled mode the kvm modules do not load. In enabled mode the kernel automatically loads the KVM modules, create the /dev/kvm device and the KVM guest OS work like a charm. After the guest OS "settles" down, the host OS cpu/RAM utlization is hardly noticeable. Response time within the guest OS is quite good running on 128MB to 512MB RAM (runlevel 3).

Whereas on my Acer 5542 laptop (4GB RAM - 256MB for video), the BIOS does *not* have any "Virtualization" flag. However, the AMD Athlon II X2 cpu (not the Turion version) does support KVM. I can load the KVM modules manually. I can start KVM guest OSs but the performance of the KVM guest OS is very sloooow and the CPU utilization goes upto 80% or more and stays there - the motherboard and CPU combo are not optimized for KVM IMO. (I am using the same VMs from the Intel systems for comparison purpose)

Afaik laptops, with ACPI running is a major pita.

With my experience with the Acer , I am a bit hesitant to plop money and then find out, the system is a lemon with respect to Linux KVM.

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Me using it as a home multimedia box. simultaneous D1 encode/decode.

I would appreciate if you could share your LKVM performance (if any).

None. also the MA78GM-S2HP from gigabyte, and many others are more or less similiar to the asus offering. Mobos too are being made exclusively in fast turaround Chinese design and manufacture setups.

2010/6/12 (रेवंत) Revant Nandgaonkar revant.one@gmail.com:

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I would appreciate if you could share your LKVM performance (if any).

How to do that? I can share benchmarks or command outputs if anyone guides me

I tried installing Chromium OS and XP on VirtualBox. both work smooth. XP even works in Seamless mode.

VirtualBox's architecture is not dependent on hardware virtualization whereas Linux KVM is.

Here is a simple scenario to get started with LKVM:

First of all make sure that you have the following device:

$ ls -l /dev/kvm crw-rw----+ 1 root kvm 10, 232 2010-06-12 04:01 /dev/kvm

Secondly, your "userid" should be part of group "kvm"

Thirdly open up a terminal window and start up "top" to observe resource consumption

Fourthly start a LiveCD Guest OS in a KVM environment.

qemu-kvm \ -enable-kvm \ -vga cirrus \ -m 1024 \ -boot d \ -cdrom /path/to/a/liveCD/iso/file

In Debian/Ubuntu "qemu-kvm" may be some other name.

The above command will start up KVM and boot your LiveCD iso as a Guest OS. Once the Guest OS boot process is complete you will have access to it's desktop. Since we have not given any NIC params, it will be NAT'd.

Keep an eye on "top" to see cpu idle and memory usage during the boot process as well when the Guest OS is booted and you are using it's desktop e.g. OO, FF etc. You can shutdown the Guest OS by following the normal shutdown procedure.

I hope the above will get you started on KVM. I am keen to see your test results; let us know.

Thanks -- Arun Khan

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:

First of all make sure that you have the following device:

$ ls -l /dev/kvm crw-rw----+ 1 root kvm 10, 232 2010-06-12 04:01 /dev/kvm

yes there exists /dev/kvm (I had to install qemu-kvm)

Secondly, your "userid" should be part of group "kvm"

I think so.. (tweaked it in gnome "System" > "Administration" > "Users and Group")

Thirdly open up a terminal window and start up "top"  to observe resource consumption

Should i post top's output? Its lengthy (CPU usage shoots upto 20-30% while booting with livecd but drops down when vm is not in use)

Fourthly start a LiveCD Guest OS in a KVM environment.

I can boot with livecd with gnome in 45 secs. I tried ubuntu 9.10 i386 I can see the live gnome desktop

I believe it works for Phenom+780G, my desktop

I also have a laptop with Athlon X2 and nvidia chipset Acer Aspire 4530 cpuinfo has svm /dev/kvm is present It also boots livecd with same command

Revant