kvm core dumps at random

I am getting core dumps when running kvm at various times. I am trying to install WindowsXP as a guest and kvm core dumps at various times during install, so I have not been able to finish the install.

HP Pavilion dv9297ea Intel Core2Duo 7200, 2GB RAM

VT is enabled in the BIOS and kvm-intel module is loaded successfully Ubuntu Feisty Fawn beta 2.6.20-13
kvm 0.9.0

Installing winxp pro as guest (no slipstreamed SP, just vanilla version)

I am a member of kvm group but I still have to chmod 777 /dev/kvm to not get error about kvm not initialized.

Starting newly created qemu image with:

kvm -m 512 -cdrom /dev/cdrom /var/qemu-images/winXP.img

-no-acpi has no affect on core dumping.

I got almost all way through installation this morning, and it core dumped near the end: QEMU window disappears and I get lots of text in terminal which ends with (Core dump). As it got so far, I can now start WinXP, but it is very slow, as if VT is not being used at all, but I get no errors when starting kvm.

Quoted 6 lines · Andrew Henry

I am getting core dumps when running kvm at various times. I am trying to install WindowsXP as a guest and kvm core dumps at various times during install, so I have not been able to finish the install.

HP Pavilion dv9297ea Intel Core2Duo 7200, 2GB RAM

i386? x86_64?

Quoted 4 lines

VT is enabled in the BIOS and kvm-intel module is loaded successfully Ubuntu Feisty Fawn beta 2.6.20-13
kvm 0.9.0

kvm versions are just integers, e.g. kvm-17, kvm-18. please specify (or are you using the kvm binary provided by feisty?.

Quoted 5 lines

Installing winxp pro as guest (no slipstreamed SP, just vanilla version)

I am a member of kvm group but I still have to chmod 777 /dev/kvm to not get error about kvm not initialized.

You need to chgrp /dev/kvm (or add a udev rule to do that for you).

Quoted 6 lines

Starting newly created qemu image with:

kvm -m 512 -cdrom /dev/cdrom /var/qemu-images/winXP.img

-no-acpi has no affect on core dumping.

Quoted 5 lines

I got almost all way through installation this morning, and it core dumped near the end: QEMU window disappears and I get lots of text in terminal which ends with (Core dump). As it got so far, I can now start WinXP, but it is very slow, as if VT is not being used at all, but I get no errors when starting kvm.

Please post the text. Also attach to the core file with gdb and post a backtrace.

Typically, I have now run winXP for 2 hours after it last bombed with 3 mins to go on the installation. WinXP started up fine however, despite not finishing the install properly. It has not crashed so far :( so I cannot paste the text of the core dump here. I will post it if I get the error again.

To answer your other questions, I run Ubuntu amd64 version and kvm is from the Feisty repository and when I run it with -h option it says it is version 0.9.0 but that was for qemu I guess. kvm is in the universe repository in fesity and is version 16. How can I determine if VT is really being used because it is running very slow on window redrawing/mouse movement?

"lsof -p pgrep kvm " should list /dev/kvm as an open file. The qemu window should show QEMU/KVM in the title bar.

If the problem persists, please download the latest released kvm version and try that.

Quoted 4 lines · Avi Kivity

"lsof -p pgrep kvm " should list /dev/kvm as an open file. The qemu window should show QEMU/KVM in the title bar.

kvm is an open file and QEMU/KVM does show in the title bar. I guess its working, but maybe kvm-16 is still not fully developed/an early release? Speed is very poor in comparison to VMware on much older hardware.