Using Ubuntu 64 bit server

[Christopher Chan]

On Thursday, October 21, 2010 11:47 PM, Larry Alkoff wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I now have the server working but have some questions.
>
> 1.  Using Ubuntu 64 bit server 10.04 from a cd it took 5 hours for the
> installation to finish.  I kept getting a loading files message but the
> estimated times varied wildly, sometimes reporting that it would take 1
> day and so many hours to complete.  Then another message would come up
> and say something like 15 minutes to finish.  Five hours seems overly
> long since standard desktop Ubuntu takes 1/2 hour.  When it finally
> finished /dev/sda1 only had about 1/2 gig on it even though it took a
> lot of time loading files from the web.

No virtio I take it...

An install of XP does just as long for me too. Really painful.


>
> 	I ended up loading 10.10 64bit server but then it took another 3 hours
> just deleting files from the original partition.  Maybe I should have
> just have deleted and re-established the partition.  I'm about to try
> loading the new cd and hope it won't take anothe 5 hours.

No virtio, no speed up.


>
> 2.  How are swap files handled?  Does the server require it's own swap
> and the various program modules (ubuntu, xp etc) require their own?
> Or it is possible to just create one big swap and the KVM server takes
> care of it?  I have 16 gig of ram - does that suggest I need a 16 gig
> swap partition?

You just have to provide swap through the disk image you create for 
Linux (translation: swap is going to kill you if you don't have virtio) 
and Windows will of course be using a page file on the filesystem 
created on the disk image you assign it. As for swap size, it has 
nothing to do with how much memory you have. Is the LPI still spouting 
that nonsense about swap must be equal to twice the RAM installed? So 
long as you do not swap, you don't even need a swap partition. Gauge how 
much memory you will use and then assign accordingly if it will chew 
more than available RAM.


>
> 3.  Next comes the creation of modules.  I think I need either virtfs or
> some similiar named program.  I've not found a step-by-step explanation
> of how modules are actually created.

??????????

Just what do you think virtfs is?

>
> I'd appreciate any help because I'm a real newbie at this virtualization
> stuff.
>

Sure, but we can't hold your hand all the way. I sent you links on 
virtio...maybe you want to read a bit on them so you do not take another 
thousand hours to install your next guest operating system?