From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1RTETC-0003Jy-UO for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:10:43 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 440DD21C0C6; Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:10:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-vx0-f181.google.com (mail-vx0-f181.google.com [209.85.220.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08E4C21C034 for ; Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:09:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: by vcbfl17 with SMTP id fl17so2172658vcb.40 for ; Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:09:28 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:organization :x-mailer:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=/AvzGgZMz1kRXfI6+ERUs0tLn7ODb/gGGc5w72TWQk4=; b=w0qsoPOfaKZXhV6bEt4UxJ6dmTfWLnlNAQTSQizgSP0rYfUJZvVPpvIKcHbqvmZP4x 9AIRTgl0guDEFVtNr6L5ztVnwSoe9/+jsciUcntNPDkG7BZKZ2YemyMo4iDaESu0Xf8Q 6W1s5uL8F5CRd2xXaP3vqE9+kuBhYOD0og4QU= Received: by 10.52.30.130 with SMTP id s2mr25670287vdh.55.1322060968220; Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:09:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from rohan.example.com ([196.215.144.97]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p2sm24248013vdi.22.2011.11.23.07.09.25 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:09:26 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:09:21 +0200 From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: A helping hand with virtual machines, please. Message-ID: <20111123170921.676c6cde@rohan.example.com> In-Reply-To: References: <20111122192021.GA3364@acm.acm> <20111122222923.7c1a6901@rohan.example.com> <20111123091707.GB2423@nicolas-desktop> <20111123132123.544dcbb4@rohan.example.com> Organization: Internet Solutions X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.8 (GTK+ 2.24.4; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: f37d13b8-e7f1-494e-876f-fe51a0d6e1f7 X-Archives-Hash: 8e84ee83c4fe0a4eb9157c26d2f65ba1 On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:51:19 -0800 Mark Knecht wrote: > On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 3:21 AM, Alan McKinnon > wrote: > > On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:17:07 +0100 > > Nicolas Sebrecht wrote: > > > >> The 22/11/11, Alan McKinnon wrote: > >> > >> > I use virtualbox and it's the one I recommend. > >> > > >> > The kernel modules are no better and no worse than any other > >> > out-of-tree modules. > >> > >> You're wrong. Using the virtualbox module means you turn the > >> kernel to "tained crap" because of the number of problems it > >> causes, including random memory curruption. > >> > > > > > > Care to back that up with something resembling evidence? > > > > EVERY out-of-tree module will taint the kernel. As to whether it > > deserves the "crap" moniker is a matter of opinion > > > > -- > > Alan McKinnnon > > alan.mckinnon@gmail.com > > > > > > Alan, > I'm a happy Virtualbox user so I was surprised to see this post on > the LKML which I suspect pushed the consciousness of this a bit more > to the forefront: > > https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/10/6/317 > > Now, I have no problems with Virtualbox but I have no reason to > disbelieve these folks either. As with a lot of these things, it's the > devil you know or the devil you don't know. I suspect the other less > used solutions also have problems but not as many users, etc. > > - Mark > Mark, I too am a happy VirtualBox user. I find it works better and is far more stable than either VMWare or Nvidia drivers. Or Flash for that matter. I also know the Linux kernel devs have incredibly high standards - mere perfection is often just not good enough - a very good trait in a dev. I put it down to a distinct lack of technical design not being driven by a corporate Sales department :-) Having said that, Dave's mail sounds a lot like me sounding off on a good day after the Nth clueless user pissed me off one time too many - he makes a startling claim and then proceeds to not back it up, but just rant. Lets grant that the VirtualBox modules are not up to LKML standards. That's fine, very little out of the tree is. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the issues are silly bugs involving pointer arithmetic (the usual cause of these things) and could be fixed up with minimal effort. Either way I don't think a sweeping condemnation of the entire product is the right way to go. Oh, I forgot something in the first paragraph. In my experience on this machine we can add Firefox, OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice to the same list of unstable software. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com