Knowledge Base

While installing the Red Hat Linux 9.0 guest operating system, you may notice that the guest performs poorly or slowly, or you may see INIT errors when you first boot the guest. To work around this issue and install the guest more easily, pass the nosysinfo option when you boot the Linux kernel at the beginning of the installation. At the boot: prompt in the guest, type text nosysinfo.

After you install the guest operating system, if you notice that the virtual machine runs slowly or if you still see INIT errors, you can modify your boot loader to always use the option when the guest operating system boots. Choose the steps for your boot loader choose GRUB or LILO.

Modifying Your GRUB Boot Loader

1. In a text editor, edit /etc/grub.conf.

2. Look for the following section in the file. Note that you may see a different kernel instead of the 2.4.20-8 kernel shown below.

   title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
       root (hd0,0)
       kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
       initrd ....

   At the end of the kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ line, add nosysinfo.

3. Save and close the file. You can now boot the guest.

4. Restart the guest operating system.

   Note: If you are not confident with changing this configuration file, copy the above four line section and change the title from Red Hat Linux to RH Linux Guest, and add nosysinfo to the end of the line beginning with kernel in the newly created section. At boot time, you can choose to boot either the RH Linux Guest for optimal performance or Red Hat Linux for your original setup.

Modifying Your LILO Boot Loader

1. In a text editor, edit /etc/lilo.conf.

2. Look for the following line
   append="....."

3. Add nosysinfo to the line like this:
   append="..... nosysinfo"

   If there is no append= line in /etc/lilo.conf, add the following line:
   append="nosysinfo"

   at the beginning of /etc/lilo.conf, before the first image= or other= directive.

4. Save and close the file.

5. Run the lilo command again so your changes can take effect.

6. Restart the guest operating system.

Slowness Due to Native Posix Threads Library

If the guest operating system runs slowly only for a particular application, it may be that the application uses the Native Posix Threads Library (NPTL). An alternative workaround for NPTL applications is described at www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1470