Trixbox under VMWare Server 2.0 hosted on Linux

I had Trixbox running fine under VMWare on an older machine. When I moved to a new, fast, dual core, 64-bit server, all audio playback became choppy. I just spent an entire day getting it working, and I'd like to share the details with the trixbox community at large. All of this information came from various places on the web, but none of it was collected together in one nice place.

I can't claim this will work for everyone, but it worked for me:

First, copy the vmware tools rpm to the trixbox host.
- select "Install VMWare Tools" from the VMWare monitor
- login to trixbox as root and run these commands:

mkdir mnt
mount /dev/cdrom mnt
cp mnt/*.rpm .

Now, let's grab a new kernel:

wget dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.i686.rpm
wget dev.centos.org/~tru/kernel-vm/5/RPMS/i386/kernel-vm-devel-2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.i686.rpm

This kernel is optimized specifically for running under VMWare. Without it, I had no luck getting rid of choppy audio.

Since we're upgrading the kernel, we also need to grab the zaptel source:

wget www.voicetronix.com.au/Downloads/asterisk/zaptel-wcopenpci-1.4.9vt1.tar.gz

Finally, we need the gcc compiler:

yum install gcc

Now we have all the pieces, so let's put them together. First, install the new kernel:

rpm -ivh kernel-vm-*

Edit the kernel options in /boot/grub/menu.lst:

vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

Make sure "default=0" is set at the top so the new kernel boots. Add the "acpi=off" and "clock=pit" options to the kernel you just installed. It should now look like this:

        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.13.el5vm ro root=LABEL=/ acpi=off clock=pit

The first option disables ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) for the kernel, which seems to interfere with timing, and the second forces the kernel to use a more accurate technique for synchronizing the vm time with the host time. (Another thread recommended also putting "nosmp noapic nolapic". That actually made it worse for me. YMMV.)

We're ready to boot the new kernel:

init 6

When trixbox is back up, log in again as root. Now we can install the VMWare tools:

vmware-config-tools.pl

Pick the default on every question by hitting enter.

Now, we'll rebuild the zaptel drivers:

tar xzf zaptel-wcopenpci-1.4.9vt1.tar.gz
cd  zaptel-wcopenpci-1.4.9vt1
./configure
make && make install && make config

Now edit /etc/sysconfig/zaptel and comment out all of the "MODULES=..." lines, EXCEPT the "ztdummy" driver. It will be commented out by default, so you'll need to uncomment it:

vi /etc/sysconfig/zaptel

Reboot one last time and you should have a stutter-free trixbox running under VMWare!

init 6

Sources:
http://pbxinaflash.net/vm/
http://www.trixbox.org/forums/trixbox-forums/help/crappy-sound-pl...