VMware Workstation and Kernel 2.6.30 FAILURE!
 

HELP this is stressing me to no end! i have Arch linux installed with kernel 2.6.30 and vmware workstation 6.5.2, i used Krellan's first and second fixes (two seperate times) http://communities.vmware.com/thread/221724 and managed to get vmware workstation to run but when i load a virtual machine, ( i tried to install winXP winXPx64 and vista) and they all freeze durring install, sometimes for a few seconds sometimes so badly that i have to kill my X server (yes it freezes the guest and the host) occasionaly i cant even stop my X and have to do a hard reboot, it didnt seem to freeze so much when i installed arch as the guest, does anyone have any idea what i can do? i really really would like to get vmware workstation working, virtualbox works perfectly but... the 3D support is lacking please it would mean the world to me to get this working i really dont want to have to duel boot.

Kernel 2.6.3 is old. Are you sure you need to run that particular stale, vulnerable version that doesn't include all the fixes and performance enhancements later versions have? VMware daemons and any running guests log to their own logfiles. Do these, and your system logs, show anything looking like warnings or errors? "Freezing" can have all sorts of reasons. Sometimes a user might even perceive it as the system having stalled while it is still operating (albeit under a load of 20 or so ;-p) Like all CPU and I/O-hogging applications VMware works better on suitable hosts. Are you sure your hardware and software configuration are capable enough? To get a better idea what the bottleneck is you could run any kind of SAR. Starting it while the system is at rest, what does running sar, atsar or dstat show? Finally, while Linux filesystems are quite resilient, hard rebooting a machine is a risk.

I just read "kernel 2.6.3". All 2.6 kernels below 2.6.19 are buggy so install a Distribution with a kernel above 2.6.19.
Your problem seems to me as a missconfiguration.
Take a Process controll tool and watch the processes when you start that all. Maybe initd can't detect a start loop of a process in VM.
Also some system resources could be cached by vista(MSDOS) in a non multitasking way (you know, that there is only microsoft in the world so it doesn't have to care of others). So you can install that all on a different drive as linux.

well i have a lenovo w500 with a 2.4ghz core2duo and 4gbs of ram, i can run ANY of the afore mentioned operating systems in VirutalBox perfectly, the only reason im trying VMware is for the better 3D support, i dont think its my hardware, but i appoligise its not 2.6.3, its 2.6.30,
i can post a vmware.log but the last time i read threw one i didnt see any errors, i recall reading a post somewhere where becuse of the way VMware did its IRQ calls it cant help but lock out liek that but i cant seem to find that website anymore :/

also i read somewhere that my processor was built for virtualization, and i enabled all the virtualization settings in the BIOS (P8600 i think)

Hi -

The reason VMWare typically performs better (and, in my experience, it *does* usually perform exceptionally well) is precisely *because* it exploits as much hardware and OS advantages as it can, very often at as low-level as possible. Which, of course, can make make it sensitive to low level problems.

SUGGESTIONS:
1. Upgrade your Linux ASAP. It isn't necessarily hard or complicated. As Unspawn noted, please be sure to apply all the latest fixes/patches (both kernel and runtime). Here's a good resource:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/...on_From_Source

2. Consider upgrading from VMWare Workstation 5.x to 6.x (if you can afford it), or moving from Workstation to VMWare Server (a free download, which also allows you to create, edit and run VMs).

IMHO .. PSM

i mis typed alot of things im sry, i have kernel 2.6.30 and VMware 6.5.2

If your CPU's have VT support that's all the more reason to keep up to date. I've read that since kernel 2.6.21-something the VMware VMI code is in the kernel which you can use with Workstation-6 or Server-2.

Be aware that there is an issue when going from 2.6.3 to anything after 2.6.18 if you have SATA drives.

Added:
Guess I should qualify that to: if you compile your own kernels.

once again sorry! but my version numbers where messed up! the issue has todo kernel 2.6.30 and vmware 6.5.2

well, thank you for the help, but theres no way you could hvae figured out my problem, the VM was stored on a NTFS partition, and for somereason that was MESSING EVERYTHING UP horribly badly, its ext4 now and vmware is blissfull, solved

Kinda odd though as NTFS-3g seems to work OK (for me), anyway thanks for posting back your fix.

oh no it works amazing for me too, jsut... not with vmware workstation i guess lol