Mismatch Oracle Enterprise Linux & Virtualbox

[mreys]

The Linux kernel version 2.6.18 (and some 2.6.17 versions) introduced a race condition that can cause boot crashes in VirtualBox. Please use a kernel version 2.6.19 or later.

That comes from the Virtualbox manual.

And then when you download Oracle Enterprise Linux, it comes with 2.6.18. This is a bit unfortunate.

[sej7278]

is that as a guest or host?

i've got plenty of guests running centos 5.4, oel 5.3 and rhel 5.0 - all essentially the same thing.

i used to use centos 5.2 as a host and never had any problems.

the alternative is wait for rhel6 (currently in beta) or switch distro.

[Sasquatch]

Since the manual says 'boot crashes', and the user posted this in Linux Guests section, I'm pretty sure he's talking about Oracle Linux as a Guest system . Also, the vanilla kernel of 2.6.18 might have a race condition, but who says that CentOS didn't patch the kernel to avoid this?

[fixedwheel]

the RHEL (and thus "OEL" and CentOS too) kernel is patched like some thousand times

i didn't have any such problem with my CentOS guests, neither with Debian Etch (2.6.18)

[sej7278]

the RHEL (and thus "OEL" and CentOS too) kernel is patched like some thousand times

i didn't have any such problem with my CentOS guests, neither with Debian Etch (2.6.18)

yes, i think the quote from the manual is probably accurate in very few cases, 2.6.18 kernel is way too important in the enterprise arena for bugs like that.