On Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:38:16 +0200, Xavier Parizet <x...@gentooist.com> wrote: > - why 2.6.21 stays masked on ~arch (last entry in changelog date of > 31/08/2008) ?
2.6.21 was a forward-port done by some Gentoo-guys based on the 2.6.18-kernel that was part of Xen 3.1.3 (IIRC). It's _old_, really old, that's why it's hardmasked. The current 2.6.18-based Xen-kernel ebuild is the kernel (patch) that's included with Xen 3.3 (again, IIRC). There are no newer _official_ Xen-kernels (at least none newer than 2.6.18), and the Gentoo-developers decided not to include a forward-port anymore, as it quickly becomes unmaintainable when the version difference between kernel trunk and Xen kernel becomes larger. There are forward-ports done by some other distributions (the 2.6.25 you're hinting at is the Xen-kernel forward port of the Debian-guys, IIRC). Someone is rebasing the SuSE-forward-ports of the Xen-kernels to Gentoo, and is offering ebuilds for download here: http://code.google.com/p/gentoo-xen-kernel/downloads/list The kernels offered by the SuSE-developers are at most 1-2 minor revisions behind the current vanilla kernel (as far as i can tell). I've been using those rebased SuSE-Xen-kernels productively on a Gentoo machine since quite some time, and they've always been very stable. > - is someone still working on Xen in Gentoo ? Yes. To convince you, Xen 3.4.1 took about a day (post release by the Xen developers) to be included in ~x86-portage. > - i know about kvm, so is there any reason to migrate to KVM instead of > Xen ? If you're currently using HVM, partially; HVM is in portage (and is also maintained), so you wouldn't need to rely on outside ebuilds, but the respective infrastructure for maintaining HVM-based machines from the command-line is poor (there's no such thing as xm and init-scripts, which can be a major PITA). If you're using para-virtualized kernels, then definitely no, as HVM fully virtualizes all I/O (which degrades disk-IO considerably more than a paravirtualized Xen instance), unless you're adventurous and willing to play with virtio-drivers, which I could never get completely stable. YMMV, and HTH! -- Heiko Wundram Gehrkens.IT GmbH FON 0511-59027953 | http://www.gehrkens.it FAX 0511-59027957 | http://www.xencon.net Gehrkens.IT GmbH Strasse der Nationen 5 30539 Hannover Registergericht: Amtsgericht Hannover, HRB 200551 Geschäftsführer: Harald Gehrkens, Daniel Netzer
