[gentoo-user] VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[gentoo-user] VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   When starting VMware-Player I get the following message:

The host's Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.
Multiprocessor virtual machines exhibit degraded performance without
yield(). Choose 'OK' to enable the sysctl 'kernel.sched_compat_yield'
or 'Cancel' to continue without yield().


   Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
/etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1027987

   I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's. I'm wondering if
there's a more Gentoo way to turn on a kernel feature like this so
that it survives updates without my full attention.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 18:43 on Thursday 04 November 2010, Mark 
Knecht did opine thusly:

> Hi,
>    When starting VMware-Player I get the following message:
> 
> The host's Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.
> Multiprocessor virtual machines exhibit degraded performance without
> yield(). Choose 'OK' to enable the sysctl 'kernel.sched_compat_yield'
> or 'Cancel' to continue without yield().
> 
> 
>    Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
> 
> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=di
> splayKC&externalId=1027987
> 
>    I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's. I'm wondering if
> there's a more Gentoo way to turn on a kernel feature like this so
> that it survives updates without my full attention.


Gentoo way:

Use conf-update (or etc-update if you must)
use "merge" function
tell computer what you want it to do

Ubuntu way:

"it survives updates without my full attention"
maintainer tells user what he thinks the computer should do
frustrate user, user gives up in apathy and says "Oh well..."

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 11/04/2010 06:43 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>     When starting VMware-Player I get the following message:
>
> The host's Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.
> Multiprocessor virtual machines exhibit degraded performance without
> yield(). Choose 'OK' to enable the sysctl 'kernel.sched_compat_yield'
> or 'Cancel' to continue without yield().
>
>
>     Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
>
> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1027987
>
>     I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's.

Gentoo will never overwrite your /etc config files.  New files are 
created with an "._" prefix.  When that happens, portage tells you that 
"N files in /etc/ need updating."  At that point, you either manually 
merge the changes or use a tool like "dispatch-conf" (I recommend this 
one) or "etc-update".  And until you do so, the old files will be used.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 11/04/2010 06:43 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>    When starting VMware-Player I get the following message:
>>
>> The host's Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.
>> Multiprocessor virtual machines exhibit degraded performance without
>> yield(). Choose 'OK' to enable the sysctl 'kernel.sched_compat_yield'
>> or 'Cancel' to continue without yield().
>>
>>
>>    Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
>> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
>>
>>
>> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1027987
>>
>>    I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
>> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's.
>
> Gentoo will never overwrite your /etc config files.  New files are created
> with an "._" prefix.  When that happens, portage tells you that "N files in
> /etc/ need updating."  At that point, you either manually merge the changes
> or use a tool like "dispatch-conf" (I recommend this one) or "etc-update".
>  And until you do so, the old files will be used.

Yes, thanks Nikos. I do understand that part.

I tried dispatch-conf years ago and couldn't get the hang of it. It
was not clear to me what was old/new and all the rest of that.

My worry with etc-update is that I know, for the most part, all the
files I modify when doing an install so I know what to look for when
I'm selecting files to replace myself. However with that tool there's
a point where you might have 20 files that need updating, you look at
the list and nothing looks like what I changed and you hit -5 to tell
it to do everything. I know I'm going to overwrite sysctl.conf that
way because it's not in my mental list.

It's easy enough for me to keep a copy and fix it by hand since the
only place this option seems to matter is VMware and it's very clear
about what the problem is. I'll likely just go that way. This isn't a
problem that causes the machine not to boot or anything like that.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 21:03 on Thursday 04 November 2010, Mark 
Knecht did opine thusly:

> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> > On 11/04/2010 06:43 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>    When starting VMware-Player I get the following message:
> >> 
> >> The host's Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.
> >> Multiprocessor virtual machines exhibit degraded performance without
> >> yield(). Choose 'OK' to enable the sysctl 'kernel.sched_compat_yield'
> >> or 'Cancel' to continue without yield().
> >> 
> >> 
> >>    Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
> >> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd
> >> =displayKC&externalId=1027987
> >> 
> >>    I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
> >> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's.
> > 
> > Gentoo will never overwrite your /etc config files.  New files are
> > created with an "._" prefix.  When that happens, portage tells you that
> > "N files in /etc/ need updating."  At that point, you either manually
> > merge the changes or use a tool like "dispatch-conf" (I recommend this
> > one) or "etc-update". And until you do so, the old files will be used.
> 
> Yes, thanks Nikos. I do understand that part.
> 
> I tried dispatch-conf years ago and couldn't get the hang of it. It
> was not clear to me what was old/new and all the rest of that.
> 
> My worry with etc-update is that I know, for the most part, all the
> files I modify when doing an install so I know what to look for when
> I'm selecting files to replace myself. However with that tool there's
> a point where you might have 20 files that need updating, you look at
> the list and nothing looks like what I changed and you hit -5 to tell
> it to do everything. I know I'm going to overwrite sysctl.conf that
> way because it's not in my mental list.
> 
> It's easy enough for me to keep a copy and fix it by hand since the
> only place this option seems to matter is VMware and it's very clear
> about what the problem is. I'll likely just go that way. This isn't a
> problem that causes the machine not to boot or anything like that.


I find conf-update much better than dispatch-conf and etc-update. It's curses-
based and displays the modified files in a tree structure by directory. Very 
intuitive display. And it's smart enough to know to just apply changes to 
files that differ only in whitespace for example.

I set aside a few minutes after an update to look at each file individually. 
The diff it shows is colorized which is a huge help. The only tricky part is 
doing a merge. It shows old and new and you have to say "l" or "r" for each 
chunk (a contiguous collection of changed lines). The only issue is when you 
want to tweak only one line in a multi-line chunk. It's rare, and I just use 
vi on those files.

Try conf-update, you might like it. It's a good middle-ground, I find.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 21:20:25 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I find conf-update much better than dispatch-conf and etc-update. It's
> curses- based and displays the modified files in a tree structure by
> directory. Very intuitive display. And it's smart enough to know to
> just apply changes to files that differ only in whitespace for example.

+1 for conf-update


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Press Return to Continue" - known as "The Mail Menupause".

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 21:20:25 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
>> I find conf-update much better than dispatch-conf and etc-update. It's
>> curses- based and displays the modified files in a tree structure by
>> directory. Very intuitive display. And it's smart enough to know to
>> just apply changes to files that differ only in whitespace for example.
>
> +1 for conf-update
>

I'll give it a try next time around.

Thanks guys!

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Stroller]

On 4/11/2010, at 7:20pm, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> ...
> I find conf-update much better than dispatch-conf and etc-update. It's curses-
> based and displays the modified files in a tree structure by directory. Very 
> intuitive display. And it's smart enough to know to just apply changes to 
> files that differ only in whitespace for example.

I believe etc-update is smart about whitespace, too. At least, it will often report that it is automatically handling trivial changes in a number of files.

I will have to try conf-update - its interface sounds nice.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Adam Carter]

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>
> I will have to try conf-update - its interface sounds nice.
>
>
If you run X, then cfg-update, configured to use meld for the
diffing/editing via GUI, is nice and clear.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Alex Schuster]

Am 04.11.2010 20:20, schrieb Alan McKinnon:

> Try conf-update, you might like it. It's a good middle-ground, I find.

I like cfg-update [*]. I use it with kdiff3, but you can use about any
merge tool you like, be it GUI or CLI. Looks quite sophisticated to me.
I only worry that it is not being developed any more, and needs a new
maintainer for a long time now. But it still seems to work very well.

Features:
- updating multiple machines from a single location
  (see /etc/cfg-update.hosts)
- updating with GUI or CLI tools of your choice
  (see /etc/cfg-update.conf)
- support for Portage and Paludis packagemanagers
  (via hooks)
- automatic updating of unmodified config files and
  unmodified binaries
- automatic 3-way merging of modified config files
  (only if backup of previous update is found)
- the above means that the script does more automatic
  updates the longer you use it
- it correctly handles file2link, link2file and link2link
  situations
- it creates backups before it touches your files so
  you can abort an update or restore files afterwards
- you can use the --automatic-only option for scheduling
  with cronjobs or other scripts
- supported GUI merge tools: xxdiff, kdiff3, meld, gtkdiff,
  tkdiff, gvimdiff
- supported CLI merge tools: vimdiff, sdiff, imediff2
- all features documented in the manpage (man cfg-update)

[*] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=86622

	Wonko

[gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 11/04/2010 09:03 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>  wrote:
>> On 11/04/2010 06:43 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>>  [...]
>>>     Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
>>> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
>>>  [...]
>>>     I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
>>> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's.
>>
>> Gentoo will never overwrite your /etc config files.  New files are created
>> with an "._" prefix.  When that happens, portage tells you that "N files in
>> /etc/ need updating."  At that point, you either manually merge the changes
>> or use a tool like "dispatch-conf" (I recommend this one) or "etc-update".
>>   And until you do so, the old files will be used.
>
> Yes, thanks Nikos. I do understand that part.
>
> I tried dispatch-conf years ago and couldn't get the hang of it. It
> was not clear to me what was old/new and all the rest of that.
>
> My worry with etc-update is that I know, for the most part, all the
> files I modify when doing an install so I know what to look for when
> I'm selecting files to replace myself. However with that tool there's
> a point where you might have 20 files that need updating, you look at
> the list and nothing looks like what I changed and you hit -5 to tell
> it to do everything. I know I'm going to overwrite sysctl.conf that
> way because it's not in my mental list.

Specifically for sysctl.conf, when you open it, you will see this at the 
bottom of it:

   # YOUR OWN CUSTOM STUFF BELOW

That means it's very easy to copy whatever you inserted at the end, do 
the update, and then paste it back.

Also, I have a modified sysctl.conf too (a swapiness tweak), but 
updating baselayout (the package that owns that file) didn't actually 
install a new copy of it, presumably because all my changes were below 
the "YOUR OWN STUFF" line.  Many ebuilds are smart about updating /etc 
files; and sometimes, they don't install new ones, but directly modify 
existing ones to selectively add or remove stuff.

[gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Remy Blank]

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Mark Knecht wrote:
> My worry with etc-update is that I know, for the most part, all the
> files I modify when doing an install so I know what to look for when
> I'm selecting files to replace myself. However with that tool there's
> a point where you might have 20 files that need updating, you look at
> the list and nothing looks like what I changed and you hit -5 to tell
> it to do everything. I know I'm going to overwrite sysctl.conf that
> way because it's not in my mental list.

Put your /etc under SVN, or Mercurial, or whatever revision control
system du jour. Bonus points if you manage to store file and directory
permissions in there as well.

-- Remy


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Remy Blank <remy.blank@pobox.com> wrote:

> Put your /etc under SVN, or Mercurial, or whatever revision control
> system du jour. Bonus points if you manage to store file and directory
> permissions in there as well.

Is there a way to tell portage to conf-protected files under
some prefix ? This would allow easy integration into an
semi-automated vcs workflow. 


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 phone:  +49 36207 519931  email: weigelt@metux.de
 mobile: +49 151 27565287  icq:   210169427         skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Wednesday 10 November 2010, Enrico 
Weigelt did opine thusly:

> * Remy Blank <remy.blank@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Put your /etc under SVN, or Mercurial, or whatever revision control
> > system du jour. Bonus points if you manage to store file and directory
> > permissions in there as well.
> 
> Is there a way to tell portage to conf-protected files under
> some prefix ? This would allow easy integration into an
> semi-automated vcs workflow.

CONFIG_PROTECT

in make.conf(5)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Wednesday 10 November 2010, Enrico 
> Weigelt did opine thusly:
> 
> > * Remy Blank <remy.blank@pobox.com> wrote:
> > > Put your /etc under SVN, or Mercurial, or whatever revision control
> > > system du jour. Bonus points if you manage to store file and directory
> > > permissions in there as well.
> > 
> > Is there a way to tell portage to conf-protected files under
> > some prefix ? This would allow easy integration into an
> > semi-automated vcs workflow.
> 
> CONFIG_PROTECT
> 
> in make.conf(5)

According to the manpage, this only tells which directories should
be config-protect'ed. What I need is that these files should be put
under some prefix (w/ the same hierachy/names) instead of renamed
to ._cfg*.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 phone:  +49 36207 519931  email: weigelt@metux.de
 mobile: +49 151 27565287  icq:   210169427         skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 00:02 on Thursday 11 November 2010, Enrico 
Weigelt did opine thusly:

> * Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Wednesday 10 November 2010,
> > Enrico
> > 
> > Weigelt did opine thusly:
> > > * Remy Blank <remy.blank@pobox.com> wrote:
> > > > Put your /etc under SVN, or Mercurial, or whatever revision control
> > > > system du jour. Bonus points if you manage to store file and
> > > > directory permissions in there as well.
> > > 
> > > Is there a way to tell portage to conf-protected files under
> > > some prefix ? This would allow easy integration into an
> > > semi-automated vcs workflow.
> > 
> > CONFIG_PROTECT
> > 
> > in make.conf(5)
> 
> According to the manpage, this only tells which directories should
> be config-protect'ed. What I need is that these files should be put
> under some prefix (w/ the same hierachy/names) instead of renamed
> to ._cfg*.

What version of portage are you running?

Mine is 2.2.0_alpha4 and the man page says:

       CONFIG_PROTECT = [space delimited list of files and/or directories]
              All files and/or directories that are defined here will  have  
"config  file
              protection"  enabled  for  them.  See  the  CONFIGURATION  FILES  
section of
              emerge(1) for more information.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:18:08 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > According to the manpage, this only tells which directories should
> > be config-protect'ed. What I need is that these files should be put
> > under some prefix (w/ the same hierachy/names) instead of renamed
> > to ._cfg*.  
> 
> What version of portage are you running?
> 
> Mine is 2.2.0_alpha4 and the man page says:
> 
>        CONFIG_PROTECT = [space delimited list of files and/or
> directories] All files and/or directories that are defined here will
> have "config  file
>               protection"  enabled  for  them.  See  the
> CONFIGURATION  FILES section of
>               emerge(1) for more information.

I think what Enrico is getting at is storing the new config files
somewhere else, instead of the original path with the name prefixed
by ._cfg.

Such a move would break {etc,conf,cfg}-update for no real benefit. What
is the point of including these files in a VCS if you already have the
files they are to replace under VCS?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> I think what Enrico is getting at is storing the new config files
> somewhere else, instead of the original path with the name prefixed
> by ._cfg.

ACK.

> Such a move would break {etc,conf,cfg}-update for no real benefit.
> What is the point of including these files in a VCS if you already
> have the files they are to replace under VCS?

Archiving the actual (production) and default settings in separate
trees, eg. to allow 3-way-merge.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 phone:  +49 36207 519931  email: weigelt@metux.de
 mobile: +49 151 27565287  icq:   210169427         skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------