Arch Linux

markmills

Member

Registered: 2009-04-14

Posts: 2

Installing Arch in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1

Firstly, I'm very new to linux and am looking to try out as many distros as possible before deciding on which one to learn from.  I want a simple but powerful distro which has minimal packages which will allow me to develop a system myself, learning how the OS works along the way.  Arch linux looks like the one.

I've tried to install from the ftp iso "archlinux-2009.02-ftp-i686" onto Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 on my Pentium 4 3.4GHz PC.  I get a "Kernal panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill the idle task! message" after a message "unknown_bootoption+0x0/0x1db", a hex dump and "EIP: [<c010982c>] text_poke_early+0x4c/0x70 SS:ESP 0068:c042fe90" message.

Don't know whether this means anything or I've missed something obvious.  Does anyone have an experience of this type of install?  Have I downloaded the wrong ISO?

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

mikesd

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-01

Posts: 788

Website

Re: Installing Arch in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1

Arch does seem to have a few issues when running in a VM. More so than when using actual metal.

That should be the correct CD.

I never had much luck with MS Virtual PC. Maybe try VirtualBOX from Sun?

I don't know if your pentium 4 has support for hardware virtualisation. Without hardware support the performance will be less than impressive and I found I had more issues without hardware virtualisation when running vms.

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markmills

Member

Registered: 2009-04-14

Posts: 2

Re: Installing Arch in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1

Great - downloaded VirtualBox and it works first time.  Thanks.