Re: [Xen-users] Most stable Xen distro?

["Mark Smith" <smitty@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Is there a consensus on which distro is the best for running a Xen dom0?
>  I have tried Debian Etch (Xen 3.0.3/2.4.18 kernel) but it was having
> problems with the domU's thinking the (virtual) hard drive was bad.
>  I upgraded to Xen 3.2 hypervisor and tools (Using Etch Backports) and that
> helped quite a bit (errors are not fatal but still there) but this left the
> kernel untouched and I assumed that it would be best to get a kernel
> compiled with the same version of hypervisor you are using.
>
>  I then tried Ubuntu Gutsy (Xen 3.1/2.6.22 kernel) but the domU guests hang
> while booting.
>
>  I would prefer a Debian Etch dom0 but will go with whatever works best.
>
>  So to clarify.. Is there a Xen distro package / Kernel package combination
> that works best?
>  I would consider compiling from scratch but I am not sure that would do any
> better.
>
>  Any suggestions?

I setup my Xen box on 3.0.1 back almost two years ago.  I tried really
hard to use a Debian dom0 but was unable to get it to work - notably
at the time it didn't have drivers for my SATA card, so I tried
building my own kernel.  Wasn't very happy with the fragility of the
setup, so I went to CentOS 4 and it worked amazingly well.

Honestly, you don't do much with the dom0.  If you're doing Xen right,
your dom0 is almost untouched.  Just sits there.  So I can highly
recommend using something that works really well (CentOS, Fedora Core,
etc) and putting Debian/Ubuntu/etc as your domUs.  That's what I do!

Just last week I updated to Xen 3.2 as well, and things are running
great right now.

Caveat lector: I am using Xen kernels I compiled myself, I am not
using any distro packaged anything.  I probably could use packaged
stuff with 3.2, but back in the 3.0.1 days, the packages weren't that
good IMO.  If you use the packages, your experience may vary.  :)


-- 
Mark Smith / xb95
smitty@xxxxxxxxx

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