[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#604160: Bug#604160: solution found, but vmx flag is misleading

[Daniel Pocock]

Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 11/21/2010 03:58 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>   
>> The vmx flag in the cpuinfo output doesn't provide an accurate
>> indication of BIOS status.
>>     
>
> Why do you think it should? It's there simply to tell what the processor
> is capable of, not to tell what your motherboard supports!!!
>
>   

Actually, the VMX flag is something of a red-herring - although if the 
cpuinfo is meant to be an accurate representation of the chip rather 
than representing the way the environment is configured, then maybe it 
shouldn't be hidden by Xen hypervisor.

The real issue is that Xen did actually know that I had a VMX chip, but 
the message it gives is ambiguous.  For the given situation I was faced 
with, this message:

Error: HVM guest support is unavailable: is VT/AMD-V supported by your 
CPU and enabled in your BIOS?

could have been something like:

Error: Xen has detected an Intel chip with VMX capability, but you must 
enable support for this in your BIOS.

and then I wouldn't have been distracted by the vmx flag in cpuinfo.