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Re: [Xen-users] pci graphics in paravirtual domU

Henning Sprang wrote:
On 1/31/07, Marduk <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually another reason that it might *not* work is that some X drivers
depend on the system vga bios, which AFAIK doesn't exist on a DomU even
if you use PCI passthrough.

That might explain that I did not found anybody actually doing it...

Also depends on where you searched :)
I wanted to do this sometime ago, but other work has
been prioritised over this so I've not got a completed
system to offer as an example. I ended up on the xen-devel
list and made useful progress.
I still believe it's possible to do, and intend to do
it at some point. However it may require a fairly specific
set of conditions to be met. From the stage I ended up at
I suspect that the final issues were actually related to
the two cards interfering with each other, rather than
a specific Xen/DomU problem.

From http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-09/msg00884.html

[with reference to the
   Fatal server error:
   xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open /dev/tty0
 error]

I gave up trying to sort this particular problem
out. I was using Debian Sarge for Dom0 and DomU and
found various suggestions (with google) of things to
try, most of which didn't apply to the version of X
in Sarge. Upgrading through to a more recent xorg
either from unstable, or using backports.org led to
much happier experiences.

With xorg and the command:
    X -novtswitch -sharevts vt1
I then ran into more standard problems with the X display
driver talking to the graphics card.

Full details on what we were looking for are in my
previous posts here, under "X11 on domU", but, briefly,
we want multi-head/seat on a single box using the
on-board AGP and additional PCI graphics cards, using
USB for input devices (sound not required). We're
actually after 3 domU's each with their own X and no
console on the dom0.
Using the pciback driver it was fairly straightforward
to present domU with graphics and USB, though Xen needed
a little tweak to make the VGA memory range available
to the driver (I had help with this, so I only partially
follow it :)

Ultimately I had two problems getting it to work,
one was the i810 driver accessing memory, which stopped
X working in domU at all, the other was the second card
I had installed turned out to cause display corruption
when in X (but had no visible effect on the console).
The final problem is one of time, which is why I can't
actually say I've done it, as yet :)

X11 in domU, yes, but not two at once.




--
Julian Davison
Note: 1) This may have come from an address @cbhs.school.nz
         but isn't necessarily the (or even an) official view
         of Christchurch Boys' High School
      2) While replying to this address may get into my mailbox
         it will almost certainly be filtered into a mailing list
         folder. To actually reach actual me, strip off the bit
         after the '-' in the name.

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