Bug#678236: linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64: Disk IO error when running debian 6.0.x with buslogic virtual disk and 4G+ mem in a VMware VM
Hi Ben,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Hutchings" <ben@decadent.org.uk>
To: "Peter Cao" <pengzhencao@vmware.com>, 678236@bugs.debian.org
Cc: "chunmei(Tracy) Huang" <cmhuang@vmware.com>, "Arvind Kumar" <arkumar@vmware.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2012 12:34:07 PM
Subject: Re: Bug#678236: linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64: Disk IO error when running debian 6.0.x with buslogic virtual disk and 4G+ mem in a VMware VM
>We offer both but the installer is supposed to pick the '686-bigmem'
>configuration by default.
No. The installer picks amd64 kernel by default for configuration with 4G+ mem.
And it normal "i686" kernel if mem<4G.
>It would not surprise me if BusLogic was broken on 64-bit systems, but
>presumably you would have noticed that in other 64-bit Linux guests.
>The userland architecture (i386 vs amd64) should not make any
>difference.
This issue can not be repro on real amd64 debian(amd64 debian kernel+ amd64 userland, installed with amd64 ISO).
And It can not be repro on ubuntu10.10 PAE kernel with 4G+ memory
>What I meant is that if the VMware tools do not configure a Debian 6.0
>guest to have a PV-SCSI adapter by default, this is a poor default and
>that is a bug (independent of any bugs in the guest kernel or driver).
The default configuration will use lsilogic disk controller for debian.
We do not use pvscsi disk controller by default for all guest OS.
I am not the owner for creating VM configurations but I guess this is a balance for performance and best compatibility.
>> We can use pvscsi for best performance but our customer may need the
>> buslogic virtual adapter so we have to support this configuration.
>Why would they specifically need that when they use a guest and host
>that support PV-SCSI?
We just support this configuration in our product and it is the user's choice to use which controller.
PVSCSI should have best performance with vmware tools installed, but not every user install tools, though we highly recommended end user to install
vmware tools for best IO/mem performance.
Ben, do you have any suggestion on how to debug the buslogic driver?
Regards,
Peter Cao
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