Trying to make a happy kernel for an i7 920 with KVM

[1clue]

Hi.

I'm admitting complete and utter defeat. I need help. I suspect that I need to go back to wearing proverbial diapers.

I've been using Linux for over a decade. I've compiled more kernels than I can count, and after the first few never had any problem until I moved to an i7 920. Since then I have not had a happy kernel that both supports all my hardware and is stable. This includes prior Gentoo installations.

Here are my desires:

1. I want a kernel to run on the bare hardware which makes use of all my hardware, including chip/motherboard features which may not be entirely necessary for a bare-bones system.
   
2. I am using software RAID on all partitions except swap, including /boot.
   
3. I want this box to host KVM guests, both Linux and Windows. I may also experiment with Mac OS or Darwin. No more than 2 guests at once probably.
   
4. I want to use non-free software, most importantly the nvidia-drivers video driver and the Creative X-Fi sound card.
   
5. I want to take full advantage of IPV6
   
6. I would like to keep this x86_64 but I figure I may need to bend that a bit
   
7. I would like to watch TV/DVD/Blu-Ray in a window or full-screen, but this is the least critical of the desires.
   

I've loaded the 2.6.34-gentoo-r6 kernel source from gentoo-sources.

I've also loaded Pappy's seed for this kernel from kernel-seeds.org.

I'm starting from scratch with basic questions. Please be gentle.

1. Can I do all this without using experimental/incomplete drivers?
   
2. Are the options which are set for most features actually safe? Meaning, can I download gentoo-sources, add the kernel seed, set up my specific hardware and then just compile to make it mostly go?
   
3. Is there a good write-up on this so nobody has to write a book just to help me out? I've already checked the handbook and searched the Gentoo documentation, and spent several times going line-by-line on kernel-seeds documentation. I'm either doing something stupid without thinking or I'm thinking too much and not going with the flow.
   

Hardware listed below:

Motherboard is the generic version of the Asus P6T.

[pappy_mcfae]

[1clue]

Pappy,

Thanks for the reply.

Blu-ray playback is of marginal value because I have a separate Blu-ray player that I can use if I have to, but I have a Blu-ray RW in the box and I would like to be able to use it to read/write to the 50G capacity. Watching blu-ray on the PC would be Really Cool, but that's gravy for me. I am NOT interested in doing anything with movies that violates the rules a Windows user would need to/be expected to follow, and setting all that up would be what happens after just about everything else is working.

Experimental: OK, I just hoped to cut down on the junk I have to wade through.

Safe: The things you mention are not on my radar. I'm familiar with the things you're talking about, not what I'm talking about is "won't lock my system up, and won't leave me with a half-functional system." In other words, when I add your file, configure it for my hardware and compile it, will the kernel that comes out have basic functionality without a lot of extras? If I actually knew what all those options were, would the default setup be something an average user might want, or are they random noise to be completely ignored?

I keep getting lost in some areas, like networking features for example. I lose track of the difference between "I need that" and "That would be cool" or "I wonder what that is." Always had that problem, but back in the day the number of things you could play with was a lot smaller. Then I stopped compiling my own, and now everything is different.

Finally, I thought that you could find the currently running kernel's config somewhere in /proc, but I can't find it. Being able to start with that would be REALLY handy.

Thanks.

[albright]

[krinn]

well you shoud be able to produce a kernel yourself.

if you don't care about the space...
make allmodconfig
and everything possible will be module

make allnoconfig
and everything possible will be set to no
This way you just have to enable what you need, and if you don't know if you need it, then you probably don't need it
The kernel itself will gave you hints to answer (should the option be on or off ? If you don't know set it to X)

next to that, as you're one little lazy user (ok i'm speaking more about me there)
lspci -k and tada, you will get the list of needed drivers for your kernel to work

and the only difficulty i saw was that fucking tsc timer that is bug as hell for my core2 and i7
sadly i cannot disable it, and some kernel blacklist it but some others re-enable it (currently i'm using 2.6.36-rc6 and they again enable that shitty timer)
i find the hpet really stable and well, nothing more, it just do the job ok, nothing fancy
so add that if you have timing/lag peak sometimes in your applications to default your timing base on hpet.
CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL=y
CONFIG_CMDLINE="clocksource=hpet"

[aCOSwt]

[pappy_mcfae]

Yes, your system will function as fully as possible. I have set up a few other I7 kernels, and so far, so good. There might be unsupported devices, but I'm still fairly sure that anything that falls into that category shouldn't be there too long.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[1clue]

OK, well I have a semi-functional kernel from 2.6.34-gentoo-r10.

Good news, I can boot and have all my filesystems, and the sound card works, and X works on the nv driver.

Bad news, the nvidia driver doesn't work. Can't load glx driver according to /var/log/Xorg.0.log. It says to reload the nvidia driver.

I can't emerge nvidia-drivers though. It says (full trace below) that my kernel config is bad, and I need to run make oldconfig && make prepare to fix it. Did that, still broken.

I'm stuck. Thanks in advance.

Here's the trace from revdep-rebuild:

[pappy_mcfae]

It appears as if your installation of nvidia-drivers went well. What is most likely happening is that you can't start X. This is because nvidia-drivers require an /etc/x11/org.conf file. While xorg-server 1.7 and up don't require an /etc/x11/org.conf file for every other driver one can use, it is a must for nvidia-drivers.

Here is one I use. Edit it as needed, or try it full on first. If you still have issues, post your /var/log/Xorg.0.log after X failure.

[1clue]

http://pastebin.com/GWREszrz

My xorg.conf for nvidia is as follows:

[aCOSwt]

[pappy_mcfae]

1clue,

I forgot to ask you to post your /etc/fstab file. I'll need it to make sure your file systems are set properly.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[1clue]

@aCOSwt,

If you look at my xorg.conf, it tells you that it was generated by nvidia-xconfig. My version is evidently much more verbose than yours?

As well, I've had the nvidia driver installed before, but with the new kernel it isn't working.

That said, I looked again at the output and you're right, it doesn't say it's invalid and it doesn't say it failed. Thanks for pointing that out.

I've probably compiled kernels for Gentoo on this box over 30 times. None of them are completely happy, and I keep throwing them out since I manage to mess them up after fighting with it for awhile.

@pappy,

[pappy_mcfae]

Cool. I'll take a closer look when I get home later on this evening.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[1clue]

I think I have a fairly good handle on the disk array.

I'm considering converting everything out of ext2 since you can't resize ext2 on the fly, but I don't need help with that.

My issue is strictly with the kernel and its features.

One thing that I have on my old kernel that's gone now, is the CPU frequency stuff. I have performance and ondemand in the list, but I used to also have the ability to pin it at one of maybe 8 or 10 frequencies. Come to think of it I've never really used anything except ondemand or performance, but it was need to play with when I'm bored.

I haven't even started testing the video stream stuff, first I want to get the basic every-day stuff going, and really I can mess around on my own for that. My biggest issue is using all the processor features and the normal stuff. Dual monitors doesn't do much good if they both show the same thing.

Thanks.

[pappy_mcfae]

You weren't too far off. The jmicron is mislabeled. It is actually an AHCI device. When working with hard drive drivers and file systems, you want to install them directly into the kernel. As far as KVM, I'm not versed in it. I believe the settings need to be compiled into the kernel.

Click here for your new .config. Compile as is.

For the best results, please do the following:

1) Move your .config file out of your kernel source directory (/usr/src/linux- ).
2) Issue the command make mrproper. This is a destructive step. It returns the source to pristine condition. Unmoved .config files will be deleted!
3) Copy my .config into your source directory.
4) Issue the command make && make modules_install.
5) Install the kernel as you normally would, and reboot.
6) Once it boots, please post /var/log/dmesg so I can see how things loaded.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[1clue]

Hang on, I posted it here but it was cut off. I'm going back to your other site.

http://pastebin.com/1ECFu1Fi

Now I'm going to try to remake the xorg.conf as recommended and see if that does anything.

Thanks.

[1clue]

The abbreviated xorg.conf did not find any screens. There are 2 of them.

The previously generated xorg.conf didn't work either, but I didn't really grab the log.

Now I'm going to generate another one with the same tool, on the off chance that your changes made the generated file be different.

[pappy_mcfae]

I don't like the look of what I'm seeing. Give this a try instead. This should at least clear up the jmicron pata issue.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[pappy_mcfae]

Also, please post your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file.

Cheers,
Pappy
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[1clue]

This will have to wait until I get home.

Thanks.

[1clue]

dmesg:

http://pastebin.com/286ecVRX

Xorg.0.log:

[pappy_mcfae]

I'm still not happy with what I'm seeing as far as kernel driver errors. Those might be because of the newness of your machine. You could try a more recent kernel version, and see if that cures those errors. If not, post them as kernel bugs, and see where that goes.

As for X, it's not finding the nvidia module. That has to load or you won't be able to start. Did you run make modules_install after the new kernel was compiled? Did you emerge nvidia-drivers with /usr/src/linux pointing to /usr/src/linux-2.6.34-gentoo-r10 after compiling the kernel with this latest .config?

Also, you need to run this command:

[aCOSwt]

[pappy_mcfae]

It's weird, for sure. I just set up another guy with an I7 laptop, and it booted with nary an error.

Cheers,
Pappy
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