Configuring Slackware 13.7 as guest on KVM with virtio drivers

baboow · 08-30-2011, 06:55 AM

I have installed Slackware 13.7 as a KVM guest. I did this with ide device support with Slackware. I spent alot of time trying to find how to install Slackware with virtio support but found nothing.

Now that Slackware is installed as a guest I would like to enable support for virtio driver for better performance. Could someone point me to docs or a how to that might accomplish this?

Slackware64 13.7
8 GB Ram
250 GB HD
KVM host is debian running proxmox

thanks for your help

Chuck56 · 08-30-2011, 07:46 AM

Virtio-eth is easier to get working than virtio-blk. There's a way to get the the virtio-blk drivers to load with the Slackware generic initrd in the guest. I'm not sure I've seen it documented online but it's possible. I've got both vitio-eth and virtio-blk running with KVM guests but my notes are a mess. Setup requires multiple reboots, changing boot parameters, lilo and fstab in the right order.

baboow · 08-30-2011, 07:52 AM

thanks for the reply. virtio-eth is a must have so I am trying to find something that tells how to configure. Maybe Alien Bob will see the post and comment. I know he has it running ;-).

baboow · 08-30-2011, 10:43 AM

since I have Slackware installed as guest using ide, would it be possible to symlink from /dev/sdx to /dev/vdx? In my peabrain, that would then give me virtio support.

any thoughts?