RE: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.6 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

["Dustin Henning" <Dustin.Henning@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

James,
        I saw some discussion about xenscsi/pvscsi in last month's archives
(I wasn't a member yet, so I don't have the e-mails to respond to).  I
haven't seen anything on the newer version the author was talking about
posting, so I am wondering if it might have been posted to some other list
where you are be a member.  Also, I am curious as to whether or not it might
benefit me.  I have four Windows domUs, each has its own SATA HD, so I think
I could use those drivers (alongside the GPL PV ones for everything else).
Therefore, with that configuration, I wonder if those drivers wouldn't
provide better performance than using the gpl pv vbd drivers (primarily
because I know you were recently discussing issues with how Windows
interfaces that require your drivers to use double buffering sometimes, and
also because I don't know if the scsi drivers require as much interaction
with the hypervisor).  However, I also noticed that everyone who mentioned
the scsi drivers was talking about /dev/sgX (where I am talking about
/dev/sdX), and from what I read, the drivers might really be made primarily
to be useful for non-block devices, so I don't know how ideal they would be
for block performance.
        Also, on the GPL PV drivers, I saw mention by a couple people of
their machines taking so long to boot that they gave up (on previous driver
version threads).  When I tried 0.8.7, 0.8.9, and 0.9.0, I had that same
experience, and it just occurred to me that it may have been because of the
bug apparently fixed in 0.9.6.  However, 0.9.2 worked for me, so I am not
sure if it would stand to reason that there could be any relation.  In each
instance where the machine didn't seem to be booting, I could see in VNC
that it looked like it was booting fine (Windows XP boot animation ran
smoothly at normal speed), however, when looking at xm list or xentop, I
could see that the cpu time stalled out at between 7 and 14 seconds (got
there really fast and then just pretty much stopped incrementing) and the
cpu usage for the domU was practically idle (less than 2% which is normal on
all of my XP domUs all the time).  I suppose is possible that there was a
bug check when the driver was loading and I just lucked out and didn't
experience that on 0.9.2 (seems like one person who mentioned a similar
experience was above 0.9.2).  What do you think?  Thanks,
        Dustin

-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Harper
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 22:10
To: Nick Couchman; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.6 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

> James,
> Sorry if I missed it earlier, but on version 0.9.2 you mentioned a bug
> that would essentially lock up the dom0 system for 5 or so minutes if
a
> Windows bug check occurred on a system running the GPL PV drivers.
Any
> word or whether this is fixed or not?
> 

I've just put up 0.9.6 which fixes that problem.

James


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