# Is VMware Fusion causing panics?



## chancey (Jul 13, 2010)

I've installed FreeBSD 8.0 and 8.1RC2 on VMware Fusion 3.0 and 3.1 - after only installing the base system and gnome it gives kernel panics at random intervals anywhere along the start up process or a few minutes after booting, even if I disable gnome.

As far as I can tell they don't make VMware Workstation for mac anymore and in the latest Fusion 3.1 update they add drivers for FreeBSD 8.X. I'm new to BSD but have been using linux for a long time so its all very familiar to me, but I can't work it out.

I've also tried VirtualBox but it does even worse, panics during the install.

Any ideas? Perhaps another VM software, preferably free. Thanks


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## chancey (Jul 13, 2010)

Installing FreeBSD 8.0 amd64 on latest VirtualBox for mac. It gets to "Adding packages/All/bn-freebsd-doc-20090913.tbz from acd0" and panics with:


```
anic: page fault
cpuid = 0
Uptime: 3m7s
Cannot dump. Device not defined or unavailable.
Automatic reboot in 15 seconds - press a ket on the console to abort
```


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## chancey (Jul 13, 2010)

The answer is probably yes - after installing it on vmware workstation linux is works a treat.


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## chancey (Jul 13, 2010)

Unlike other vbulletin forums I don't get an edit button (maybe because im a new user) .. anyway I spoke too soon it eventually does the same thing. Its becoming increasingly harder to have confidence in a product that in essence doesn't work.

Every time it freezes it screws up the file system and it must be repaired before I can boot again. Can someone at least tell me how i would find out the cause the kernel panics??


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## adamk (Jul 13, 2010)

When the kernel panics, interrupt the automatic reboot and get a backtrace with 'bt'.  

Even better, get a core dump if you can:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/kerneldebug.html


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## chancey (Jul 14, 2010)

After some hardcore googling I came across a post a guy had made saying the CDROM drive in vmware was causing his freebsd kernel to become unstable. I pretty much disregarded it as a coincidence but running out of options I thought it was worth a try.

After enabling the CDROM drive with no ISO, it is not solid as a rock. I have no idea why freebsd freaked out with the missing CDROM but i'm glad its fixed.

How do I mark a thread as [Solved]?


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