Hallo,
My setup is the following:
Host: Windows XP 64bit, on a dual Xeon E5130 CPU with 8GB RAM and NVidia Quadro FX3500 card
Guest: openSUSE 12.2, 32 bit
Hyper-visor: VMWare Player 5.x
Guest Conf: 2vCPUs, 3GB RAM
Problem: Extremely slow KDE.
I run my openSUSE 12.1 from day 1 of it’s release with reasonable speeds under VMWare Player 4 & 5.
The previous Friday, I decided to upgrade the 12.1 to 12.2 via zypper.
Everything was fine, except of the speed.
First I thought that the problem was 4.8, so I upgraded to 4.9, the same version of KDE as I had in 12.1.
Nothing. When I change windows, I can see how are painted in the screen! It needs over 2 seconds to render the* title bar* on a full screen application!
So, I need your help to find what option causes my PC to be that slow. Downgrading from 12.2 to (eg) 12.1 is not possible.
To move a thread, you ask a moderator to move it. You do not post again
the same thing on a different thread. Now there are two with the same
questions and some answers.
Now you have to ask a moderator to merge both threads instead.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Especially if you are running VMs, you should have copied the VM so you’re upgrading only a copy without destroying the original. Sounds like you didn’t do that so you might be SOL (not all upgrades work as expected). The only thing copying costs you is the amount of disk space being used.
You’re likely in the realm of normal troubleshooting, which means inspecting your syslog (/var/log/mesages.
Your situation may be further complicated that you are running software that is long past EOL, ie Windows XP (is EOL despite technically not official for a few more months) and VMware 4 and 5.
Might I recommend getting another hard drive and installing latest openSUSE with QEMU-KVM or Xen on it? Those virt technologies should be able to read your VMware disks. Neither virt tech would be able to use your vmx (VMware config file) so you’d have to re-build the vm configuration.
This is not the case. You missed the “Player”, so, software it’s up to date. Also, have you considered that I may not have the disk space required for a full VM backup?
Syslog does not indicate a single issue. Although libvirt is not an option, you gave me an idea.
Although I might be wrong, VMware v4/5 long ago reached EOL. If you’re running updates, no updates beyond something long ago might have been retrieved.
Yes, libvirt is not an option running VMware, am saying that if you want to consider running your VMware virtual disks using current, maintained technology then QEMU-KVM and Xen are options. Xen will run on Windows but QEMU-KVM not, if you decide to install Xen on your XP you’ll likely need to uninstall VMware first, so recommend you have verified working VMware install media if you want to re-install.
If whatever you might be trying really does produce results, be sure to post… Always interested in a approaches that work.
On 2013-02-15 19:36, tsu2 wrote:
>
> tpe;2527322 Wrote:
>> This is not the case. You missed the “Player”, so, software it’s up to
>> date. Also, have you considered that I may not have the disk space
>> required for a full VM backup?
>> Syslog does not indicate a single issue. Although libvirt is not an
>> option, you gave me an idea.
>
> Although I might be wrong, VMware v4/5 long ago reached EOL.
The current version of vmare player is 5.0.1, it is not EOL.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Just goes to show how long it’s been since I’ve used Player. Once upon a time its versions were tightly sync-d with Workstation versions. I guess no major release has been necessary since 5. Interesting since VMs have to be converted to work with each new version of Workstation.
To the OP, I don’t know if supported in Player but Snapshots and incremental disks can enable rollbacks without the requirement of a full image’s storage. Still, considering how cheap storage is nowadays (even a 360gig external costs less than $50 US) it’s dirt cheap insurance for storing full VM disks.
> To the OP, I don’t know if supported in Player but Snapshots and
> incremental disks can enable rollbacks without the requirement of a full
> image’s storage.
Unfortunately no, Player does not support snapshots the last time I
tried. I miss that feature sorely, the Server version had it.
> Still, considering how cheap storage is nowadays (even
> a 360gig external costs less than $50 US) it’s dirt cheap insurance for
> storing full VM disks.
Some people may not even have that.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
We miss the point here, which is the extremely slow speeds.
Also, a second problem is that after some time the lock screen/screen saver is turned black and I see nothing!
The only way to login in the VM is to suspend it and resume it.
So, I start to believe that the problem is the combination of the kernel and the VMWare player.
On 2013-02-19 14:16, tpe wrote:
>
> We miss the point here, which is the extremely slow speeds.
On the other thread you opened on this subject I pointed you to some
documentation on how to do upgrades and solve some of their problems. I
have seen no comments from you on this :-?
> So, I start to believe that the problem is the combination of the
> kernel and the VMWare player.
I have one virtual 12.2 with player (and several other with different
versions) and I have seen no issues, although I use it very little and
the host is not Windows.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
I do know how to upgrade, thank you :|. The problem was not the upgrade, per se.
Also, I believe that I start to better understand the issue. I have pinpointed it to graphics too, since the performance of MySQL, for example, is OK.
And, it is not a KDE issue, since the performance is awful using either KDE 3.5 or XFCE too!
Finally, I found that I can leave the VM in the lock screen for a lot of time without problems. But, if I lock Windows, then the VM is not displayed. Also, in case I disable the 3d Graphics, all I see is a black screen!
On 2013-02-20 08:16, tpe wrote:
> I do know how to upgrade, thank you :|. The problem was not the
> upgrade, per se.
As you wish.
Did you remember to upgrade the guest tools?
There are two flavours: Supplied directly by VMW, or supplied by
openSUSE. This can directly impact video.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)