[SoaS] Kernel Panic on EXT4 in SoaS when installing GCC

[Peter Robinson]

On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Peter Lambrechtsen
<plambrechtsen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 1:39 PM, Peter Lambrechtsen
>> <plambrechtsen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 12:27 AM, Sascha Silbe
>> > <sascha-ml-ui-sugar-soas at silbe.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Excerpts from Peter Lambrechtsen's message of Sun Jun 27 12:54:13 +0200
>> >> 2010:
>> >>
>> >> > As soon as it's finished installing the gcc-common update, I get a
>> >> > Kernel
>> >> > Panic in EXT4.
>> >> There are two issues here:
>> >> 1. ext4 read errors
>> >> 2. the kernel attempting to kill init
>> >>
>> >> #1 looks like overlay corruption [1], whereas #2 is probably due to the
>> >> kernel going crazy on OOM (Out-Of-Memory). Allocating more RAM to the
>> >> VM
>> >> and/or adding swap might help with #2.
>> >
>> > It was a fresh build with nothing in the Journal using:
>> > ./livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 200 --home-size-mb 200
>> > --delete-home
>> > --unencrypted-home /dev/live /dev/sda1
>> >
>> > The VM has 1GB of ram, but no swap, i'll try adding swap and ram and see
>> > how
>> > I go.
>>
>> I would add more RAM and swap but more importantly if you want to use
>> it as a full VM you would be better off attaching the ISO to the
>> virtual CD drive, boot the VM using the CD drive as the boot drive.
>> When sugar runs launch the terminal Activity and run the command
>> 'liveinst' which will do a proper install to hard disk of the live
>> image. This then will have a proper install and not one with an
>> overlay. A overlay of 200 Mb will be the cause of the ext4 crash.
>
> Cheers for that Peter
>
> I am trying to use Sugar as a local VM so that I can have a Journal and save
> all my data within the VM.
>
> With the overlay of 200MB, is it better to have more or less space for the
> overlay?
>
> What would your memory and disk recommendations be for the ideal 32Bit VM.
>
> And what options should I use with the livecd to disk:
>
> /livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 200 --home-size-mb 200 --delete-home
> --unencrypted-home /dev/live /dev/sda1

I would recommend not using that at all. See the details above.

Take the ISO and attach it to the virtual CD drive (sorry, not sure
how to do that in virtual box, I use ESX and KVM) and boot it. Then
run the liveinst and you don't need overlays as its a proper linux
install, it will use all the disk giving you a saved Journal and
everything else.

We've had a LOT of corruption problems with the overlay so its not
recommended, even less so if you plan to use gcc. If you really must
use the overlay (which I don't recommend.... did I mention that
already?) use 4Gb.

Peter