Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
* Ben Paley [EMAIL PROTECTED] [0729 22:29]: Hello everybody, If no-one responds this time I'll get the hint, please excuse me for reposting, I'm just going out of my mind! I'm getting a total crash every time I try to run vmware. This is my system: bash-2.05b$ uname -a FreeBSD potato.hogsedge.net 5.2-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT #0: Tue Jun 22 07:07:08 BST 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/POTATO i386 bash-2.05b$ pkg_info | grep vmware vmware3-3.2.1.2242_7,1 A virtual machine emulator - a full PC in a window I've had it working under NetBSD before now, a treat. But CURRENT might actually be relevant, since it uses a few kernel modules - I'd guess 5.x has some API changes from 4.X For a while I was getting some sort of network error: vmware would start as long as all the network stuff was disabled, but if I tried to have a host-only connection (I haven't even bothered trying a bridged connection) it wouldn't run (that is, vmware itself would run fine, but the virtual machine wouldn't boot, and I'd get an error message about networking - sorry I didn't make a note of it). Try bridged? and if you don't make a note of the error, people aren't going to waste their time helping you as a rule, so do that too. portupgrade -fR vmware3 and after a lot of waiting around I tried again: now I get a complete crash (can't even change to another terminal and kill x) whenever I try to start vmware. sod portupgrade - manually pkg_delete all the vmware crap, then pkg_add it. On boot, I get this message: kldload: can't load /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko: No such file or directory -bash-2.05b# locate vmnet.ko /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko Is the file actually there - what does ls say? -- Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat. Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Wednesday 21 July 2004 12:06, Dick Davies wrote: etc, etc... sod portupgrade - manually pkg_delete all the vmware crap, then pkg_add it. On boot, I get this message: kldload: can't load /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko: No such file or directory -bash-2.05b# locate vmnet.ko /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko Is the file actually there - what does ls say? Thanks a lot for your help - on the advice of various people I actually moved this over to current@; the 'current' (geddit?) state of play is that vmware runs ok, but the vm doesn't boot, and I did make a note of all the relevant error messages (at least I think they were relevant, and I think it was all of them...) Thanks a lot for your help (and everyone else's, even if I seemed to spurn their good advice), I really appreciate it! Cheers, Ben ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On 7/20/2004 3:45 PM Thompson, Jimi wrote: FreeBSD has 3 types of distros - CURRENT, STABLE, and RELEASE. In order of increasing stability, they are: CURRENT = currently in development (Alpha) and by far the least stable of the 3 RELEASE = released to the populous at large (Beta) and fairly stable but may have some issues STABLE = well, just that, stable and the production release of the OS You've got STABLE and RELEASE mixed-up. STABLE is the beta and RELEASE is production. A RELEASE is a snapshot in the STABLE branch that has been tested and deemed ready for production. STABLE is usually stable but is still a development branch and thus, beta. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html HTH, Drew -- Visit The Alchemist's Warehouse Magic Tricks, DVDs, Videos, Books, More! http://www.alchemistswarehouse.com ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Wednesday 21 July 2004 10:20 am, Drew Tomlinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/20/2004 3:45 PM Thompson, Jimi wrote: FreeBSD has 3 types of distros - CURRENT, STABLE, and RELEASE. In order of increasing stability, they are: CURRENT = currently in development (Alpha) and by far the least stable of the 3 RELEASE = released to the populous at large (Beta) and fairly stable but may have some issues STABLE = well, just that, stable and the production release of the OS You've got STABLE and RELEASE mixed-up. STABLE is the beta and RELEASE is production. A RELEASE is a snapshot in the STABLE branch that has been tested and deemed ready for production. STABLE is usually stable but is still a development branch and thus, beta. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.ht ml Then why do I hear that 5.2.1-RELEASE is not ready to be called STABLE? Why would it be downgraded? Why have there been no STABLE 5.x branches? Or am I just confused? - jt ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Jul 21, 2004, at 2:34 PM, Joshua Tinnin wrote: Then why do I hear that 5.2.1-RELEASE is not ready to be called STABLE? FreeBSD's -CURRENT tree has generally been reasonably stable, but there have been periods (including quite recently with threading/#define PREEMPTION) where -CURRENT has not been reliable enough to qualify as -STABLE. Why would it be downgraded? Why have there been no STABLE 5.x branches? Or am I just confused? There have been no 5.x branches which qualify as -STABLE, correct. You may be confused, but it is the result of the extent of changes to 5.x taking longer to settle down than the developers would want. The hope was that 5.1 or 5.2 would be stable enough to promote 5.x to -STABLE perhaps six months ago. This hasn't happened, and is the reason why there is a big push to get 5.3 stabilized and solid. Again, there is some leeway for a .0 release, such as 5.0, to not be as stable as the earlier 4.x releases, but the extended period where 5.1 and 5.2 were put out as RELEASES while 4.x remains -STABLE has not been helpful to users trying to determine what the best release for them to run should be. Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote: -- Matthew N. Dodd wrote: [ ... ] I'm still not sure we should be encouraging new features in -STABLE; additional hardware support and bugfixes are one thing... Doesn't the term MFC refer to a change or new feature that has already been added to -CURRENT, and is under consideration for being backported to -STABLE because the change is important, of general interest and utility, etc? If the question is when should new features not be merged back into 4.x, my response would be that should happen after 5.x is tagged as -STABLE and 5.x is being actively recommended for to all users including newbies, not just early adopters. If the concern is is it better to spend time trying to get 5.x -STABLE then it is to spend time on 4.x, well, that makes perfect sense to me. -- -Chuck PS: What does not make much sense is 'releasing' a 'new version' of software which is not intended for the end userbase to actually use. Attempting to reduce the scope of problems with a .0 release is a noble goal, but good intentions can be taken too far. If a user asks what version should I run and the answer isn't the latest release, well, that indicates a problem. If a release candidate isn't expected to be better than the prior numerical version for the end users, then the release candidate isn't ready. Perhaps I'm drifting off-topic a bit, but I remember administering Sun machines during the transition from SunOS 4.1.x to what marketting called Solaris 2.x. Sun didn't do itself or anyone else a favor with SunOS 5.0 through about 5.5; it wasn't until Solaris 2.5.1/SunOS 5.5.1 that Sun's customers got something significantly better than a .0 release, or (perhaps arguably) better than the prior major version. That really sucked, people, so please excuse my vehemence. [ Or don't. If the comparison between SunOS 5.x and FreeBSD 5.x earns me flames, rabid criticism, and the undying emnity of whomever, so be it. :-) ] ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Wednesday 21 July 2004 12:31 pm, Charles Swiger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 21, 2004, at 2:34 PM, Joshua Tinnin wrote: Then why do I hear that 5.2.1-RELEASE is not ready to be called STABLE? FreeBSD's -CURRENT tree has generally been reasonably stable, but there have been periods (including quite recently with threading/#define PREEMPTION) where -CURRENT has not been reliable enough to qualify as -STABLE. Why would it be downgraded? Why have there been no STABLE 5.x branches? Or am I just confused? There have been no 5.x branches which qualify as -STABLE, correct. You may be confused, but it is the result of the extent of changes to 5.x taking longer to settle down than the developers would want. The hope was that 5.1 or 5.2 would be stable enough to promote 5.x to -STABLE perhaps six months ago. This hasn't happened, and is the reason why there is a big push to get 5.3 stabilized and solid. Again, there is some leeway for a .0 release, such as 5.0, to not be as stable as the earlier 4.x releases, but the extended period where 5.1 and 5.2 were put out as RELEASES while 4.x remains -STABLE has not been helpful to users trying to determine what the best release for them to run should be. OK, as I understand, the branches are -CURRENT and -STABLE. But I often see 4.10-STABLE recommended for production use. This is probably due to what you describe above. What does RELEASE mean, as specifically as you can? I'm using 5.2.1-RELEASE and am not planning on going 4.10-STABLE, as I can't due to hardware, and it's not a big deal as this isn't for production. But I'm curious ... is RELEASE supposed to be the *most* preferable candidate for someone considering a production OS, but just at this time, 5.x hasn't settled down? If it had settled down, would would the most preferable production snapshot in 5.x-STABLE be called RELEASE? And is this not the case now because 5.x is taking longer than it should, so RELEASE is there, even if perhaps it shouldn't be? Ack! Now I'm confusing myself ... - jt ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Jul 21, 2004, at 3:51 PM, Joshua Tinnin wrote: [ ... ] OK, as I understand, the branches are -CURRENT and -STABLE. But I often see 4.10-STABLE recommended for production use. This is probably due to what you describe above. That's right, 4.10 is the latest -STABLE release. What does RELEASE mean, as specifically as you can? RELEASE refers to a specific version of the system which has gone through the release engineering process described at: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html I'm using 5.2.1-RELEASE and am not planning on going 4.10-STABLE, as I can't due to hardware, and it's not a big deal as this isn't for production. But I'm curious ... is RELEASE supposed to be the *most* preferable candidate for someone considering a production OS, but just at this time, 5.x hasn't settled down? End users are expected to install releases rather than daily snapshots from -STABLE or -CURRENT, yes. Releases are published as .iso images and resold by FreeBSD distributors on CDs. If it had settled down, would would the most preferable production snapshot in 5.x-STABLE be called RELEASE? If 5.x had settled down, 5.x would now be -STABLE, and the latest RELEASE of 5.x (currently 5.2.1) would be the most preferable version for end-users to run. And is this not the case now because 5.x is taking longer than it should, so RELEASE is there, even if perhaps it shouldn't be? Thats about what I feel, yes. My opinion is that the current level of effort to stabilize 5.x should have happened around the 5.0 to 5.1 transition, rather than now at the 5.2 to 5.3 transition. -- -Chuck ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Wednesday 21 July 2004 01:14 pm, Charles Swiger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 21, 2004, at 3:51 PM, Joshua Tinnin wrote: [ ... ] OK, as I understand, the branches are -CURRENT and -STABLE. But I often see 4.10-STABLE recommended for production use. This is probably due to what you describe above. That's right, 4.10 is the latest -STABLE release. What does RELEASE mean, as specifically as you can? RELEASE refers to a specific version of the system which has gone through the release engineering process described at: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html I'm using 5.2.1-RELEASE and am not planning on going 4.10-STABLE, as I can't due to hardware, and it's not a big deal as this isn't for production. But I'm curious ... is RELEASE supposed to be the *most* preferable candidate for someone considering a production OS, but just at this time, 5.x hasn't settled down? End users are expected to install releases rather than daily snapshots from -STABLE or -CURRENT, yes. Releases are published as .iso images and resold by FreeBSD distributors on CDs. If it had settled down, would would the most preferable production snapshot in 5.x-STABLE be called RELEASE? If 5.x had settled down, 5.x would now be -STABLE, and the latest RELEASE of 5.x (currently 5.2.1) would be the most preferable version for end-users to run. And is this not the case now because 5.x is taking longer than it should, so RELEASE is there, even if perhaps it shouldn't be? Thats about what I feel, yes. My opinion is that the current level of effort to stabilize 5.x should have happened around the 5.0 to 5.1 transition, rather than now at the 5.2 to 5.3 transition. OK, thank you very much for clarifying, or perhaps confirming. This is also the way I understood it to be, and I picked 5.2.1-RELEASE because of hardware, but again this machine isn't for production. It does pretty well, but I haven't really put it through the ringer. But the documentation is also a little confusing: Here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/introduction.html#LATEST-VERSION It says: Briefly, -STABLE is aimed at the ISP, corporate user, or any user who wants stability and a minimal number of changes compared to the new (and possibly unstable) features of the latest -CURRENT snapshot. And here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/introduction.html#STABLE It says: FreeBSD-STABLE is intended for Internet Service Providers and other commercial enterprises for whom sudden shifts or experimental features are quite undesirable. Back to the first link, it says, At 5.3-RELEASE, the 5-STABLE branch is expected to be created. I guess this is due to the current state of things, so at 5.3-RELEASE when 5-STABLE is created, this will be easier for the new user to figure out. I think it might be misleading to suggest, then, that -STABLE is intended for ISPs and other users needing the most stable version of the software, as it appears to these eyes they should go with the RELEASE of the -STABLE branch. Or maybe that's just because right now the RELEASE isn't on a -STABLE branch. In any event, perhaps the documentation could be a bit more clear about this, but there's probably enough to do hammering out 5.x, and it does make sense if you read the Release Engineering section. But there isn't much explanation of RELEASE on the FAQ, which is why I was confused. Anyway, thanks again for this. It will make explaining this to other people much easier ... I've been enthusiastic about FreeBSD since I discovered it, and recommending a version for those who want it will be simpler to explain now. - jt ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On 7/21/2004 11:34 AM Joshua Tinnin wrote: On Wednesday 21 July 2004 10:20 am, Drew Tomlinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/20/2004 3:45 PM Thompson, Jimi wrote: FreeBSD has 3 types of distros - CURRENT, STABLE, and RELEASE. In order of increasing stability, they are: CURRENT = currently in development (Alpha) and by far the least stable of the 3 RELEASE = released to the populous at large (Beta) and fairly stable but may have some issues STABLE = well, just that, stable and the production release of the OS You've got STABLE and RELEASE mixed-up. STABLE is the beta and RELEASE is production. A RELEASE is a snapshot in the STABLE branch that has been tested and deemed ready for production. STABLE is usually stable but is still a development branch and thus, beta. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.ht ml Then why do I hear that 5.2.1-RELEASE is not ready to be called STABLE? Why would it be downgraded? Why have there been no STABLE 5.x branches? Or am I just confused? I know Charles Swiger has discussed this and pointed you to the release engineering doc but this might even simplify it further. A RELEASE is nothing more than a snapshot of the tree at a specific point in time. Thus a 4-STABLE release is a stable release and a 5-CURRENT is a current release. Therefore all of the CURRENT warnings apply to 5.2.1-RELEASE although it is much less likely to contain as many problems as just grabbing the most recent version of CURRENT. I know it's confusing. HTH, Drew -- Visit The Alchemist's Warehouse Magic Tricks, DVDs, Videos, Books, More! http://www.alchemistswarehouse.com ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
Ben Paley wrote: Hello everybody, If no-one responds this time I'll get the hint, please excuse me for reposting, I'm just going out of my mind! I'm getting a total crash every time I try to run vmware. This is my system: bash-2.05b$ uname -a FreeBSD potato.hogsedge.net 5.2-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT #0: Tue Jun 22 07:07:08 BST 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/POTATO i386 bash-2.05b$ pkg_info | grep vmware vmware3-3.2.1.2242_7,1 A virtual machine emulator - a full PC in a window For a while I was getting some sort of network error: vmware would start as long as all the network stuff was disabled, but if I tried to have a host-only connection (I haven't even bothered trying a bridged connection) it wouldn't run (that is, vmware itself would run fine, but the virtual machine wouldn't boot, and I'd get an error message about networking - sorry I didn't make a note of it). So I did portupgrade -fR vmware3 and after a lot of waiting around I tried again: now I get a complete crash (can't even change to another terminal and kill x) whenever I try to start vmware. On boot, I get this message: kldload: can't load /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko: No such file or directory in amongst all the other system stuff, but I also get this: -bash-2.05b# locate vmnet.ko /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/vmnet.ko even after updating the locate database. Any ideas what's going wrong? Thanks a lot, Ben Why are you using CURRENT? Don't you know that you can expect things to break, not work, and overall see the end of the world as you know it? Well - maybe not the latter. Perhaps you might be better served running a STABLE branch instead of an Alpha? Things might work, and work better. Now, Sarcasm This post of yours ought to go to the CURRENT list. /Sarcasm -- Best regards, Chris -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ClamAV virus dat updated: Tue Jul 20 2004 at 03:02:52 daily.cvd updated (version: 415, sigs: 1033, f-level: 2, builder: ccordes) ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
SNIP bash-2.05b$ uname -a FreeBSD potato.hogsedge.net 5.2-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT #0: Tue Jun 22 07:07:08 BST 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/POTATO i386 bash-2.05b$ pkg_info | grep vmware vmware3-3.2.1.2242_7,1 A virtual machine emulator - a full PC in a window /SNIP Ben, To expand on what a previous poster mentioned, Unix isn't M$. FreeBSD doesn't use you as an unwilling guinea pig to test out a new OS. Installing the current version isn't for the faint of heart. If you install CURRENT, that doesn't mean it is the latest production version of the OS. It's an Alpha (as in Alpha, Beta, Gamma) test release to see how it the OS responds when users start trying to do things to and with it. I'm sure that there is an official definition for the 3, but I don't ever recall seeing it, so I've made up my own which fits pretty well. FreeBSD has 3 types of distros - CURRENT, STABLE, and RELEASE. In order of increasing stability, they are: CURRENT = currently in development (Alpha) and by far the least stable of the 3 RELEASE = released to the populous at large (Beta) and fairly stable but may have some issues STABLE = well, just that, stable and the production release of the OS If you have a machine that you actually _use_, my advice is that you should definitely not run current. While you will get the same kinds of responses that you typically get from the M$ OS, it's probably not what you want a production box, hence the reason that you're using FreeBSD to begin with. We have some VERY vanilla web servers here that run 4.9, but again they are very basic and it doesn't take a whole lot to get apache and mod_perl to work properly. Since you are running VMWare and doing some unusual things with your system, you should consider rolling back at least to 4.9 and maybe even to 4.10 which is the most up-to-date STABLE distro. HTH, Jimi ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Tuesday 20 July 2004 22:32, Chris wrote: Why are you using CURRENT? Don't you know that you can expect things to break, not work, and overall see the end of the world as you know it? Well - maybe not the latter. Perhaps you might be better served running a STABLE branch instead of an Alpha? Oh, I know things will break, all right! They break, and then I try to fix them, and so on... then eventually, if I can't sort it out on my own or find the answer with google, I ask for help, and if I'm lucky I get it! Things might work, and work better. That would spoil the fun, surely :) Now, Sarcasm This post of yours ought to go to the CURRENT list. /Sarcasm Do you think so? I thought about it, and felt, on balance, that it belonged in questions@ - but since you suggest it I'll certainly try them. I can scarcely get less help than I've had so far :( Oh well, I'll just have to keep rebooting into Windows... Thanks anyway, Ben ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your 3rd and last chance to help me with vmware
On Tuesday 20 July 2004 23:45, Thompson, Jimi wrote: If you have a machine that you actually _use_, my advice is that you should definitely not run current. While you will get the same kinds of responses that you typically get from the M$ OS, it's probably not what you want a production box, hence the reason that you're using FreeBSD to begin with. We have some VERY vanilla web servers here that run 4.9, but again they are very basic and it doesn't take a whole lot to get apache and mod_perl to work properly. Since you are running VMWare and doing some unusual things with your system, you should consider rolling back at least to 4.9 and maybe even to 4.10 which is the most up-to-date STABLE distro. Thanks for your advice - it is very sensible - but I will ignore it anyway. I've been using FreeBSD for about five years and CURRENT for most of this year and worse things have happened to me than not being able to run vmware... and I've got myself out of them, with sometimes some help from the lists or friends. And most of the time it works fine! I've got whizzy graphics, sound, apache, php, perl, usb digital camera, uncle Tom Cobbley and all, I read the UPDATING files and keep it all humming... What mystifies me slightly is why I shouldn't be allowed to ask for help if something does go wrong, especially something like this, which seemed to me as likely to do with the vmware3 port as with broken CURRENT kldload code, or whatever it eventually turns out to be. I totally understand your warnings, and ultimately I am repared to take full responsibility for any catastrophic failure and consequent data loss which takes place as a result of my egregious cheek in running CURRENT (in which case it will be my wife's opinion, rather than that of anyone on a technical list which will matter to me!). I'm not Violet Elizabeth Bott threatening to thcweam and thcweam until YOU PEOPLE FIX MY COMPUTER, god damn it, or I'll take my custom elsewhere... just a bloke who likes messing around and trying to understand how this crazy thing we call bsd works... Is that so wrong? Is it? Is it really? Sorry, it is late, I am becoming hysterical. Let's stop this now before I get arrested Thanks (really!), Ben ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
