Recent Posts

71

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by sharkcz on November 19, 2024, 02:11:52 am »

Thanks for the screenshot. Can you enter the shell and inspect the system logs? Is only Fedora 41 initrd affected and F-40 would boot OK ? Is there a significant size difference between initrd sizes of F-40 and F-41?

72

General Hardware Discussion / KVM cross-endian guest on POWER8 / IBM S822L

« Last post by kth5 on November 19, 2024, 02:08:49 am »

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired a IBM S822L dual socket system and now am starting to get to the point of using KVM/libvirt to bring guests to it. As I was used to on my Blackbird I could run big-endian guests without much performance penalty at all running little-endian on the host.

However, on the POWER8 it seems that no matter what I do, I get up to 50% steal time inside a VM when the bare-metal and the VM are otherwise completely idle. When I put any load on the VM it gets worse and jumps up to 80% or more making any vCPU config moot. This only happens when running a big-endian guest kernel and userland, which I need for my build-bots.

A bit of background of what I'm dealing with here:
* dual POWER8E 10 core SMT8 / 256GB RAM running Opal on latest available firmware
* no entitlements beyond basic & micro LPAR and the usual AIX
* bare-metal runs ArchPOWER ppc64le with SMT switched off as required
* guests I'm testing with run ArchPOWER ppc64 or ppc64+32bit userland
* kernel version is 6.11.9 on bare-metal & guests
* Qemu 9.0.3/9.1.1 w/ libvirt 10.8.0

I've tried the following all exhibiting the same steal time issue:
* single vCPU w/o threads
* single vCPU w/o threads pinned to a physical core & NUMA zone
* dual vCPU w/ 8 threads (SMT)
* dual vCPU w/ 8 threads pinned to a physical core & NUMA zone (SMT)

What I did not try is running actual PowerKVM. It seems too outdated for my liking and I'd rather have a recent package base as close to upstream as possible.

Running ppc64le in the guest does not show the problem at all and performs splendidly.

Bit at a loss here and I would rather I not yet call it a lost cause. 

73

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by markr87 on November 18, 2024, 07:22:51 pm »

What exactly appears on screen? If you boot it from the BMC web interface, what appears on the virtual serial port output?

[img/]https://ibb.co/mqy2ps8[/img]

74

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by MauryG5 on November 18, 2024, 02:59:17 pm »

Exactly, this time Fedora has outdone itself with a bug so big that it compromises the entire distro. I strongly advise you not to update because you will lose everything if you do not have another distro installed on another hard disk to be able to download all the files you may need... Be very careful!

75

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by markr87 on November 18, 2024, 02:31:45 pm »

I can confirm MauryG5's issue.  When trying to update from 40 to 41 via console it would not install due to a "watchman" issue.  After being pestered via notifications to update I decided to give "Software" a shot at the update.  It installed 41 but now NO version of Fedora will load.  "Error loading initrd" is the error given.  Even after rolling back via Timeshift I get the same error.  On a side note that may be related, my openSUSE will start but is very slow and will not fill windows.  For example if I open any file browser I get the window outline but it is filled with the desktop image and no radio gadgets.

76

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by MauryG5 on November 18, 2024, 05:58:40 am »

Exactly what I wrote in the previous two posts... From petit boot, you select a version of Fedora 41 with any Kernel that is installed and it immediately writes "INITRD error and does not boot... I'm sure that it is not a Kernel problem since it does it with any you use and I had installed 3 other Kernels in addition to the last one that until the previous use with Fedora 40 worked perfectly. The problem is at startup, at boot...

77

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by ClassicHasClass on November 17, 2024, 05:08:35 pm »

What exactly appears on screen? If you boot it from the BMC web interface, what appears on the virtual serial port output?

78

Applications and Porting / Chromium for Ubuntu

« Last post by MauryG5 on November 17, 2024, 11:16:00 am »

By chance I re -examined the Hardisk where I had installed Ubuntu 20.04, I had dismantled it about 3 years ago as it had too many small bugs and in the meantime Debian 11 had arrived which I had liked much more than Debian 10 and so I went to Debian. I noticed with my great surprise that in the meantime, after years, they finally resolved those ugly and annoying bugs that compromised the proper functioning of Firefox and that did not work completely working Thunderbird. I said incredible Wow, considering how little I see used Ubuntu in our Cominita Power, compared to Fedora and Debian above all. I must say that now I am using it again with good satisfaction, however, I miss the only thing and that I cannot use Chromium despite being Ubuntu a direct debian derivative. I was wondering and I would also ask Raptor that I take care of Chromium, is it not possible to have repositories compatible for Chromium? I tried to use those of Debian 12 before and 11 after but nothing. I managed to install the key, the repositories, on the other hand, obviously do not go even if in reality when I try to update after putting the reposoarths, he loads them almost all except one that ignores and I think it happens because they are not the right ones for Ubuntu. I was wondering if there was a way, as Ubuntu was a Debian derivative, to be able to install Chromium too ...

79

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 41 is out!

« Last post by MauryG5 on November 14, 2024, 03:06:58 pm »

Guys I confirm that currently Fedora 41, at least as far as I'm concerned, has a large system bug that does not even allow the start. After updating mine and lost it, I reformed everything and redo the installation from scratch. Well even by doing this, at the time of the start from Petit Boot, Initrd and end error does not start. So watch out for those who want to update ...

80

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: Debian 12 status?

« Last post by MauryG5 on November 04, 2024, 12:33:52 pm »

I did what you told me Daniel, I signed up to the Debian mailing list and after they sent me the acceptance response to the subscription, I immediately sent an email to the address: debian-bugs-rc@lists.debian.org and I exposed there the problem of Kernels that from 6.2.X onwards on 12 do not work. Let's see what they answer me and I hope I wrote in the right place...