Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

I’ve spent most of this morning installing the newly released Debian 5.0 under Virtual PC 2007 (SP1).

As usual with VPC, all non-Windows OS installs usually give headaches, but this one has been a real pain.

Just after creating a new VM and launching the install, I got this terrifying message: “An unrecoverable processor error has been encountered. The virtual machine will reset now”. Trying the non-graphical install throws the same result.

After some digging on the net, I found that it is a problem of the latest linux kernel builds and Virtual PC, which can be solved by selecting “Graphical Install” but instead of pressing ENTER, pressing TAB and adding the following at the end of the command line:

noapic nolapic noreplace-paravirt

Also, modify “vga=788” parameter to “vga=791” to avoid strange resolutions.

Then you can install it as you would do with a physical/real install (a standard + web server install takes only about 2GB of space counting swap partition).

Once installed, this parameters will stay and you no longer will get the VPC error, but the problems are far from finished.

  • To enable sound, go to System –> Preferences –> Sound and change all to ALSA sound system
  • To enable internet, change your VM settings to use Shared Networking (NAT) and configure it under Linux as DHCP/automatic. I couldn’t configure a standard ethernet card mapping without NAT.
  • To enable higher resolutions (at least standard ones), modify the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (with nano for example) and replace the three sections “Device” “Monitor” and “Screen” with this new content:

Section "Device"
    Identifier        "Configured Video Device"
    Driver            "vesa"
    BusID             "PCI:0:8:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier        "Configured Monitor"
    Option            "DPMS"
    HorizSync         30-70
    VertRefresh       50-160
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier        "Default Screen"
    Monitor           "Configured Monitor"
    DefaultDepth      16
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth         16
        Modes         "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

 

Save, restart Linux and finally you have a decent Debian 5 virtual machine! Mouse still gets hooked into the VM, but not being able to install the VM Additions you can live with it.

Published 18 February 09 by Kartones
Filed under: , , ,

Comments

18 February 09 by Xamar

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Bad virtual machine choice, try a free multiplatform one: VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org)

I wonder why some people use commercial software when there is a better free, and usually open source, choice.

19 February 09 by Kartones

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

@Xamar:

I haven't tried yet VirtualBox.

I'm used to Virtual PC because for Windows VMs it is the fastest solution (VMWare tends to slowdown the OS response time under heavy load).

I don't like having tons of virtual machine softwares, because usually each one installs network drivers, mouse hook drivers, etcetera. Maybe in the future I'll move to VMWare (or VirtualBox), but right now is what I have already installed and working (with Windows VMs).

One small note: VirtualPC might not be opensource, but it's free too ;)

Microsoft made it free to fight back VMWare expansion

19 February 09 by Xamar

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

From my point of view its not free. You have to use a Windows OS, which isn't free :P

Right about the drivers thing. Virtual PC surely do the same, but hides it from the user (using non-documented OS APIs).

By the way, VirtualBox uses you CPU at full speed (if it supports virtualization) :)

19 February 09 by Kartones

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

The "but Windows is not free" trick doesn't applies :P

I've seen lots of Java projects and developers using Windows as their development (and even production sometimes) platform.

About drivers you got me wrong. Both VMWare and Virtual PC add those special drivers (I don't know if VirtualBox does too, it would be logical). They are not hidden neither (you can see them at the network card properties), so please don't use the typical "MS is bad because we can't see the source code", we're talking about virtualization engines, not who is the devil.

I'll give a try to VirtualBox, ok ;)

Since I have hardware virtualization enabled CPUs I have only tried VPC2007, but in the past VMWare got slow sometimes.

As a counterpart, VMWare only takes the amount of ram it needs (so you can have dozens of VMs at the same time if you've got enough RAM), VirtualPC takes ALL the memory you assign so forget about launching more than two or three machines at the same time :P

03 March 09 by Los Barbados

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

I had the same problems with Debian 5 and MS Virtual PC. However after reading this I decided to try VirtualBox in stead of all the tweaks. And, indeed, VirtualBox works like a charm.

19 March 09 by Joseph

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

I have problem too. But it works by following this steps. I have found another problem after I booted Graphical Install theres no display. It is just showing a blank display. My video card is "S3 Graphics ProsavageDDr". Please help I'm looking forward for your suggestions... :)

22 March 09 by Paul M.

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

@Xamar

"From my perspective," saying that Virtual PC isn't free because Windows isn't free makes about as much sense as saying that Linux isn't free because you have to use hardware that isn't free.

@Kartones

Many, many thanks for doing the research and posting this.  At least I know <i>why</i> I got the first error.

Like Joseph, under Graphical Install my Virtual PC screen went black, chewed up about 50% of my CPU, and appeared to do nothing.

I used the same parameters (sans "vga"; I left it "normal") with "Install" and got "Kernel panic - not syncing : Attempted to kill the idle task !" And sure enough, my CPU stayed around 50% until I killed the VM again. Google will give you no end of reasons for that error - more than I have patience for right now. Just letting know Joseph and others know that they're not alone.

04 April 09 by Montezuma

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

After trying to install Lenny from Virtual PC 2007 with no luck ("Kernel panic - not syncing : Attempted to kill the idle task !"), i have finally (and in minutes) achieved my goal with VMWare Player.

Here are some simple instructions:

www.virtualization.info/.../how-to-launch-iso-and-use-livecds.html

Hope it helps.

12 April 09 by frank

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Thanks, i needed that...

Dont mind all these guy telling you have the wrong OS or the wrong virtual machine, they missed the point:  this is not about religion, this about running lenny on virtual PC 2007 !

16 April 09 by lenny und ms virtual pc | hilpers

# lenny und ms virtual pc | hilpers

Pingback from  lenny und ms virtual pc | hilpers

22 April 09 by David Lee Lambert

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Just tried your hints to run the Debian 5.0 minimal install CD under MS Virtual Server 2005 (installed on XP SP3), but it doesn't work :(.  I get a kernel panic at

EIP: [<c0102035>] prepare_to_copy+0x1d

24 April 09 by Montezuma

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Hey i didn't want to blame Kartones for this article, not at all.

I just needed a Debian Lenny running in a virtual machine. At first i tried with MS Virtual PC (i thought it would be easier), and that's why i landed here. I solved some problems thanks to Kartones article, but then i gave up because i had to face other annoying issues.

Then i tried with VMWare Player and i had my Lenny running in minutes.

I don't want to say what is right and what is wrong, just reporting my experience: if you need a virtual machine running Debian Lenny, VMWare Player works well, MS Virtual PC no.

24 April 09 by Kartones

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Don't worry guys, I'm not offended in any way by the comments.

I tried to install it on Virtual PC because it's the Virtualization tool I'm used to and the one I had installed on my pc.

But I know Virtual PC is kind of shitty for everything non-Windows, it's more of the challenge of being able to install a "non-supported" OS on it.

In fact, I've ended using VirtualBox, because not only it does supports all OS (Windows or not), it also runs them really fast (Windows XP boots faster than in a real machine!).

My advice is to use either VMWare or VirtualBox for Linux VMs, but you can actually make it run under Virtual PC 2007, it's just harder :)

27 April 09 by Tim Rocha

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

great! my problem with virtual pc 2007 was solved.

i added the parameters noapic nolapic noreplace-paravirt in text mode!

14 May 09 by pls

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Dam, keep getting the kernel panic even when using those options. Off to try virtualbox...

06 January 10 by Rene Schrieken

# Virtual PC 2007 and Lenny

Lenny is the latest Debian release. I did build a virtual machine on my Vista 64 bits pc starting with

19 January 10 by Silvano

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

Got a kernel panic (sync) but that got resolved by adding: no387 nofxsr

So the full string to append is:

noapic nolapic noreplace-paravirt no387 nofxsr

I didn't set vga=791 as this was leading to the error "... caught signal 6 ..."

-silvano

22 January 10 by L1lle - PopeOfPopBlog » Debian Lenny und VirtualPC

# L1lle - PopeOfPopBlog &raquo; Debian Lenny und VirtualPC

Pingback from  L1lle - PopeOfPopBlog  &raquo; Debian Lenny und VirtualPC

03 March 10 by Tenzin

# re: Installing Debian 5.0 in Virtual PC 2007

I manage to install Debian 5 on VP 2007, but I can't boot it. it says

Booting the Kernel.

[ 0.820891] 01:01: invalid checksum 0x89

Then above terrifying message: “An unrecoverable processor error has been encountered. The virtual machine will reset now”.

What is wrong with my installation??

Leave a Comment

Title (required)  
Name (required)  
Your Website/Blog (optional)
Your Comment (required)  

Captcha
Enter the number of digits on the image above (required)