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PAE Support

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Well, learnt a new one today. After a recommendation from a collegue about trying Parellels as a VM tool to run on Linux enabling some more virtual OS’s. (a.k.a. Like VMWare), I eagerly downloaded the rpm and installed. Being caught a bit lately I took the liberty of reviewing the Parallels Workstation 2.0 Installation Guide For Linux as part of the process. Pre-reqs this, ok, run this ok, supports RHEL4 that’s good. Then run the following, accept licence and continue. Fine.


Parallels-config

So I flip to the next page of the manual (pg 13), and there in big letters is:


Troubleshooting
If you receive “Can not configure!” or “Can not compile!” message (note that you should have kernel sources installed), you can view log file and try to fix problem yourself. The log file is named /usr/lib/Parallels/comp.log.< log number>.error
If log contains the following sentence: “Your kernel is compiled with PAE (Physical Address Extension)”, it means that currently running kernel supports PAE. Unfortunately the current version of the Parallels Workstation does not support PAE. To fix the problem:

  • if you have another kernel configuration compiled without PAE support, boot in this kernel.
  • if not, recompile your current kernel to create another one that does not support PAE. Please note that recompiling kernel may lead to unstable work of your primary system. For instructions on how to do this please refer to your primary OS system administration guide or consult your system administrator.
  • run the Parallels Workstation configuration script again.

Well it only took 30 secs for the install to fail. Here I am thinking, given the nightmares I’ve had lately compiling and installing software do I even bother looking.


/usr/lib/Parallels/Drivers/drvMain/vmmodule.h:44:3: #error "Your kernel is compiled with PAE (Physical Address Extension)"
/usr/lib/Parallels/Drivers/drvMain/vmmodule.h:45:3: #error "The current version of the Parallels Workstation does not support PAE mode."
/usr/lib/Parallels/Drivers/drvMain/vmmodule.h:46:3: #error "(Processor type and features -> High Memory Support) - must be not more than 4GB"

Well, made a post on CentOS 4 forums, but I had mixed response with this site.

Anybody know how to recompile a kernel with PAE support? Doesn’t seem a great topic on google.

BTW, in case you missed it PAE is Physical Address Extension.

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