Hi folks, I've had to remove support for Gentoo because I don't know how to compile a kernel in Gentoo that has Xen support; I'm not a Gentoo user and am not willing/able to put the time in at the moment to learn that. Hardly anyone wants Gentoo[1] so it's hard to justify. This doesn't mean that you can't install Gentoo. There are still some customers at BitFolk using Gentoo, and I find it hard to believe that you can't compile a Xen kernel "the Gentoo way", I just don't personally know how. I'm not willing to call Gentoo supported when the only way I know to get it going is to copy in a kernel and initrd from elsewhere. If you know better and are willing to write a wiki article[2] giving step by step instructions on how to compile a Xen kernel "the Gentoo way" then firstly, some other customers would be very happy, because they don't seem to know either; and secondly, I'd appreciate that a lot too because I'll feel comfortable offering Gentoo as a supported option again. If the article is of good quality I may also be convinced to give you some service credit. Cheers, Andy [1] http://strugglers.net/~andy/bitfolk/distros.html [2] https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Compiling_a_Xen_kernel_under_Gentoo    for example? Whatever you think is best. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting _______________________________________________ announce mailing list announce(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/announce _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users

I could potentially have a look at this, but it won't be until about mid/late-April. I have a fair amount of experience of kernel building on on Gentoo. Not as much experience of Xen. One hurdle I will need to deal with is access to a Xen VM for testing. I can probably get access to hardware at work to run a Xen VM on, but that's going to add to the time it takes as I will need to install a host OS and get Xen running on it. Is this something that BitFolk could facilitate by providing a test VM? Having said all this my BitFolk VM is running Gentoo, am I going to face issues in upgrading my kernel (handy to know before I kick off any updates!)? I'm guessing from Andy Smith's e-mail that it's an issue with (or lack of) initrd? Cheers Jon On 09/03/2011 23:38, Andy Loughran wrote: _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users

I've just finished rebuilding my Gentoo Xen kernel (using xen-sources). The only problem I had was massive clock drift, my VM would gain 1 minute every 5 or so. Turns out that you need clocksource=xen not clocksource=jiffies. I've also discovered that gentoo-sources PV_ops kernels seem to perform poorly, although I wasn't too willing to hack around with it to make it better. I'll happily have a go at writing a brief guide and posting my kernel config if that would help others out. Cheers, Ashley Nicholls System Administrator Maxeler Technologies E-mail: ashley(a)maxeler.com <mailto:ashley@maxeler.com> Tel: +44 (0) 208 762 6110 Web: www.maxeler.com <http://www.maxeler.com> On 11 March 2011 11:59, Jon Agland &lt;jon(a)sftwales.com <mailto:jon@sftwales.com>> wrote: I could potentially have a look at this, but it won't be until about mid/late-April. I have a fair amount of experience of kernel building on on Gentoo. Not as much experience of Xen. One hurdle I will need to deal with is access to a Xen VM for testing. I can probably get access to hardware at work to run a Xen VM on, but that's going to add to the time it takes as I will need to install a host OS and get Xen running on it. Is this something that BitFolk could facilitate by providing a test VM? Having said all this my BitFolk VM is running Gentoo, am I going to face issues in upgrading my kernel (handy to know before I kick off any updates!)? I'm guessing from Andy Smith's e-mail that it's an issue with (or lack of) initrd? Cheers Jon On 09/03/2011 23:38, Andy Loughran wrote: Guys, I've not got the time to look into how to build a Xen kernel - but do have experience of kernel builds in Gentoo. If someone does fancy a crack at the write up then I'd be more than happy to proof-read and polish it before sending it out. If you need any help along the way too then buzz me and I'll try and make some time to help you along. Andy On 9 March 2011 23:11, Andy Smith&lt;andy(a)bitfolk.com <mailto:andy@bitfolk.com>> wrote: Hi folks, I've had to remove support for Gentoo because I don't know how to compile a kernel in Gentoo that has Xen support; I'm not a Gentoo user and am not willing/able to put the time in at the moment to learn that. Hardly anyone wants Gentoo[1] so it's hard to justify. This doesn't mean that you can't install Gentoo. There are still some customers at BitFolk using Gentoo, and I find it hard to believe that you can't compile a Xen kernel "the Gentoo way", I just don't personally know how. I'm not willing to call Gentoo supported when the only way I know to get it going is to copy in a kernel and initrd from elsewhere. If you know better and are willing to write a wiki article[2] giving step by step instructions on how to compile a Xen kernel "the Gentoo way" then firstly, some other customers would be very happy, because they don't seem to know either; and secondly, I'd appreciate that a lot too because I'll feel comfortable offering Gentoo as a supported option again. If the article is of good quality I may also be convinced to give you some service credit. Cheers, Andy [1]http://strugglers.net/~andy/bitfolk/distros.html <http://strugglers.net/%7Eandy/bitfolk/distros.html> [2]https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Compiling_a_Xen_kernel_under_Gentoo for example? Whatever you think is best. -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting _______________________________________________ announce mailing list announce(a)lists.bitfolk.com <mailto:announce@lists.bitfolk.com> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/announce _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com <mailto:users@lists.bitfolk.com> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com <mailto:users@lists.bitfolk.com> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com <mailto:users@lists.bitfolk.com> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users