[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] I'm having a problem with linux-image-2.6.26-1-686

[Joseph Rawson]

I've been using virtualbox to develop and test my installer over the past few 
weeks.  I've been using lenny as the distribution to develop with.  I have a 
page here, if anybody is interested in what I'm doing.

http://paella.berlios.de/quickstart-vbox.html

For most of this time, the kernel I've been using has been 
linux-image-2.6.25-2-686 .  Recently the new linux-image-2.6.26-1-686 has 
made its way into testing.  I have been having a hard time getting this 
kernel to boot in virtualbox.  I'm not really sure if the problem is with 
virtualbox or with the kernel.  I'm posting this email here in hopes that 
somebody here will know where the problem resides, and help direct me on who 
to talk to in order to get it fixed.  Another reason for posting here, is 
that I have screenshots, and log files that might help determine what's going 
on.  If the problem is the kernel, I'm hoping that your experience with 
reading the virtualbox logs will help narrow down the problem, and help me 
make a better report of this to the kernel maintainers.

On my virtualbox test machine, I have both 2.6.25-2 and 2.6.26-1 installed.  
The 2.6.25 kernel always works without a problem, but the 2.6.26 kernel 
almost never works.  I'm using sid for the desktop that is running virtualbox 
(Version: 1.6.2-dfsg-4).  I have a VM with two network adapters, eth0 is 
bridged, and eth1 is on internal network.  The testing machine has eth0 on 
the internal network, and uses dhcp from the other VM that's bridged (the 
setup is detailed in the url above).

From my meager understanding of the kernel oops, it looks like it's 
segfaulting when trying to mount the reiserfs filesystem on /dev/hda1 .  I 
don't really think that there is a problem with the disk image, or the disk 
where the image resides, since the older kernel has been running flawlessly 
in all my tests for the last few weeks.

On a side note, the 2.6.26-1-686 kernel has been in sid for a while, but I've 
been using 2.6.25-2-686 exclusively.  The main reason is that at the time, 
the nvidia-glx package wasn't ready for the new kernel, and I've been too 
busy to rebuild it myself, and decided to wait for the nvidia maintainer(s) 
to catch up with the new kernel.  Also, it seems that the kernel pauses 
during the boot, requiring me to tap the power key for 1-2 seconds before it 
resumes booting.  The 2.6.24 kernel from the Lenny-Beta2-netinst cd and the 
2.6.26-1-686 kernels both experience this behavior, but oddly, the 
2.6.25-2-686 has been working flawlessly on the desktop too, and hasn't had 
this problem.


I'm attaching three logs, and the corresponding screenshots.

I'm not attaching the files, as it made the posting too big.  Instead, I 
placed them here:

http://paella.berlios.de/vbox-linux-problem/


The file "vbox-screenshot-kernel-oops.png" goes with the first log.

The file "vbox-screenshot-unable-to-handle-kernel-2.png" goes with the second 
log.

The four remaining screenshots go with the third log file, and are an attempt 
to capture the entire oops the best that can.

Again, I'm sorry, because I'm pretty sure that this isn't really a virtualbox 
problem.  I think that you can probably understand the logs better than the 
kernel maintainers, and possibly help me to make a better report of this and 
direct me on how to do so.

Also, I really like the virtualbox-ose package, and I really appreciate the 
work that has gone into making this a good debian package!  This program is 
pretty fast, even without using VT.

BTW, that reminds me, enabling VT works, but only when one VM is operational.  
When I run two machines with VT enabled, both machines freeze.  I don't 
really know if this is supposed to happen, or not, as the VT does work, just 
not with two or more VM's running at the same time.  I've been meaning to 
write about this, but wanted to wait until I have paella up and running 
first, and wait for the 1.6.4 version of virtualbox, since the upstream 
changelog list VT stability enhancements.

I'm rambling, and this mail has gotten longer than I expected.  Thanks again 
for this really cool program! :)

-- 
Thanks:
Joseph Rawson
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