CentOS 5 installation

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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h1d
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Joined: 3. Jul 2008, 02:10

CentOS 5 installation

Post by h1d »

I just took a moment to install CentOS 5.2 as a guest on VB 2.0.2 and came across a few problems and posts concerning those matters, so I'll just summarize them for anyone doing similar.

Install was rather easy, sound even worked out of box (I did 'Server GUI' installation.) It was one of easiest install experience of modern Unix. (Click, click, click, enter name, pick timezone, choose a few options, click, click. :wink: )

To get GA installed you can follow the instruction post to get the necessary build tools to compile the modules.

The first problem was that, the screen can't change its resolution at all, except for the default 800x600 and some useless 640x480. Some post suggesting to give some VRAM, but I gave it 32MB, which is quite enough for a plain desktop and it doesn't do any good. (And I see the 'Auto resize' menu greyed out on guest window.) Similar problems exist but didn't give any solution for me. At 'System - Administration - Display' I gave it some LCD Panel 1680x1050 and chose VBox GPU driver for video card, but that didn't do good either. The funny thing is the video card is displayed as 'Unknown video card' even if I chose VBox one in the list.

Second problem was at an idle moment it uses 50%-100% CPU (now it's at 30% by applying one of the solution from a post.) And there's another post talking about recompiling the kernel for less tickrate configuration. (Which I feel somewhat reluctant to recompile a CentOS kernel...). And a little study on CPU utilization on CentOS 4.

Anyone actually did a recomiple or fixed the idle CPU usage in other ways? None of these problems occur on Ubuntu.
fixedwheel
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Re: CentOS 5 installation

Post by fixedwheel »

h1d wrote:the screen can't change its resolution at all, except for the default 800x600 and some useless 640x480. Some post suggesting to give some VRAM, but I gave it 32MB, which is quite enough for a plain desktop and it doesn't do any good.
8M is enough for 1280x1024

having just learned ... is the vboxvideo driver in xorg.conf?


h1d wrote:(...)another post[/url] talking about recompiling the kernel for less tickrate configuration. (Which I feel somewhat reluctant to recompile a CentOS kernel...).
FUD ;) make a snapshot or copy of the vdi before you compile if you feel better then

i dont know CentOS/RHEL, but take the stock kernels .config and just change the CONFIG_HZ what should go wrong?
i have changed much more in my kernel config and my debian boxes are running fine

here i found a how-to which makes not so fear as the one you posted
Theophilus
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Joined: 27. Sep 2008, 03:11

Post by Theophilus »

I'm wondering if this has to do with xrandr and x11-server versions. I noticed that Fedora 8 (which works perfectly - Fedora 9 video works great but mouse integration is buggy) is running a higher version of x11-server than RHEL 5 (which does what you're talking about). I can't find an update rpm for x11-server on RHEL 5, and I'm not good enough yet to build my own from source. I can't find the docs on this, but I'm pretty sure that's it. Please let me know if you find a fix.
Bucky
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Joined: 6. Feb 2008, 21:40

Post by Bucky »

Thanks
Since I downloaded the vdi image from http://virtualboximages.com/, I would hope it was already working properly, that it should not require a recompile (which I am not qualified to do anyway)
Drilling thru the link you gave, I found a closed ticket
"The usual problem with kernels compiled with 1000 hz timers. Solution mentioned above. Closing."
I read another post that said to use a tickless kernel but that requires recompiling.
Can anyone point me to a recent version centos or fedora vdi without this problem that I can download?
fixedwheel
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Post by fixedwheel »

Bucky wrote:hope it was already working properly, that it should not require a recompile
maybe it is offered unchanged to preserve its original state ... and beauty :P
Bucky wrote:I found a closed ticket
"The usual problem with kernels compiled with 1000 hz timers. Solution mentioned above. Closing."
you have a link to the ticket?

anyway, if you don't find another Centos kernel providing this, CONFIG_HZ=100 or tickless (if available, its quite new) both requires a kernel recompile - its really not that difficult, welcome to linux :)
sej7278
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Post by sej7278 »

strange, as i don't have a problem with 32-bit centos 5.2 and i run 4 copies of it on a 64-bit fedora9 host, i've never tried fullscreen or sound as that's not i use vm's for, but 1024x768 works out of the box.

now 32-bit centos 4.7 is a different matter, and you do have 100% cpu usage unless you add the "divider=10" kernel paramter to the /etc/grub.conf
agrajag
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Joined: 3. Mar 2009, 01:02

Re: CentOS 5 installation

Post by agrajag »

As far as for those of us who want to persue tickless.. I found this link. I'm about to attempt this for a horribly performing centOS 5.3 guest on VirtualBox 3.0.4 on solaris 10 x86/64.

I'll let y'all know how it went.

The link -

http://n8wood.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/ ... tos-guest/
fixedwheel
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Re: CentOS 5 installation

Post by fixedwheel »

agrajag wrote:As far as for those of us who want to persue tickless.. I found this link. I'm about to attempt this for a horribly performing centOS
did you first try adding the divider=10 kernel parm in /boot/grub/grub.conf?

there should be no need for recompile the RHEL/Centos kernel of recent version 4 and 5 series any more, works for me on all my setups with Centos 4.7, RHEL 4.8, Centos 5.2, 5.3, fedora 10 guests
vboxer36
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Guest OSses: centos,ubuntu,Win7

Re: CentOS 5 installation

Post by vboxer36 »

Hi fixedwheel,

I tried just entering divider=10 on a line in the conf file, rebooted and it still didn't stop the CPU from pegging 100%.

Do i have to enter it differently? Like kernel param: divider=10?Apparently don't know what I'm doing so any help appreciated.

Thanks

did you first try adding the divider=10 kernel parm in /boot/grub/grub.conf
fixedwheel
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Re: CentOS 5 installation

Post by fixedwheel »

vboxer36 wrote:I tried just entering divider=10 on a line in the conf file,
not on a line ... its on the kernel line

Code: Select all

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You do not have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda1
#          initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.11.3.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.11.3.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ divider=10 rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.11.3.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.8.1.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.8.1.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ divider=10 rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.8.1.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.3.1.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ divider=10 rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.img
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