VMware

[Orion-X]

Does anyone run Vmware? is it better to have win2k as host, and linux as guest, or linux as host, and win2k as guest?

[bdl]

I have run VMware in the past, it worked so-so. I had it on an old install of linux. I can't speak for the new version, it's supposed to be much better, better integration, hardware support etc. The problem I have is the fact that they raised the cost to $299. !!! I suppose this makes up for the volumes of linux / bsd distros I have downloaded in the past vs. actually paying licensing fees on OS's but it's a little ridiculous. :mad:
Anywho, if you do run the newest version, let me know how you like it, I'd be interested to know.

[bdg1983]

I have been using VMWare at work for a few months now. Have Linux as the host and 98/W2K as the guests. As long as you have enough memory, the performance is not bad at all considering running 1 os on top of another.

I prefer linux as the host as I feel linux is the more stable os. I only need W98 in a virtual machine for Groupwise and Heat clients which do not exist yet for Linux.

Actually I'm redoing my VMWare work PC and setting up W98 on a physical partition so I can dualboot lin/win and also run W98 in VMWare using raw disk access. Have 98 and Linux installed and the next step is to install VMWare and setup the raw disk for 98.

Feel free to contact me if you need any assistance with yours.

[linuxluis]

Vmware, well I been using it for the last couple of month's . But since I just upgrade rh 7.0 to 7.1 it does not work anymore. But the good people at vmware are fixing the problem. Hopefully the new version is better then the previous one.

tux :)

[miker]

I use VMware on top of SuSE 7.1, to run VM Win2K. Mainly so I can run visio (until kivio can save as HTML), Outlook with OpenMail extensions (OMGUI on Linux sucks and I have had varying success with other IMAP4 email clients), and the occassional vdm command line.

I basicly use my Linux laptop as a hybrid network tool and office desktop, so it makes sense that the best networking OS is the host. I'm still accustomising to StarOffice which I need until other of my favourite Linux apps can import/export M$ file formats better.

But VMware has been rock solid on Linux. Before I switched to Linux host I had Linux guest on Win2K host and there were a few bugs with VMware that, although did not lead to lost data, were annoying ... such as it not connecting to floppy/cd-rom all the time. Then KDE 2.1.1 was released and I could see that I could get on much better with that Linux desktop :-)

[Orion-X]

In your experience was it easier to run VM win2k or VM linux?

[DrDebian]

Originally posted by Orion-X:
<STRONG>Does anyone run Vmware? is it better to have win2k as host, and linux as guest, or linux as host, and win2k as guest?</STRONG>

I find Linux to be more suitable to be the vmWare host, since it boats better stability and more complete network foundation (i.e. ipmasq et al).

I've successfully run Windows 95, Windows 98SE, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 in vmWare. Very smooth and even more stable in vmWare than when I ran them on real hardware.

The great thing about vmWare is that you can burn the disk image onto a CD and you have a perfect backup of a usable system.

[miker]

I'm certainly no Linux expert (yet) and VMware came with my SuSE distro so installation caused no problems (SuSE seems to be 100% compatible with RPM format in my experience thus far, so I doubt it was a 'special' comp for SuSE - although I could be wrong of course!)

The biggest problem I had was creating a shortcut to VMware under KDE, but that's all sorted now :-)

BTW, before you can use VMware you need to register for a trialware key, then you can decide if you want to buy it. Activating VMware is as simple as copying the key into a text file and sticking it in the right directory (VMware has very good help, pretty idiot proof)

And be sure to install the VMware tools into the guest system or you'll probably experience painfully slow guest system screen redraws.

All in all, VMware is better with Linux as host IMHO.

BTW, I'm running it on a relatively measly 500MHz laptop w/256MB and ATi Rage LT video w/24bit colour. The Win2K guest can still grind a bit (I am using virtual disks), but generally it's very usable.

Anyone know what the deal is with VMware GSX Server? - what's so different between it and standard VMware 2.03?

BTW, IMPORTANT - VMware is currently not supported with 2.4.x kernels (I'm using 2.2.18)

[bdg1983]

Their next version 3 should have better hardware support such as CDWriters and others.

Most would recommend Linux be used as the host rather than NT/W2K. It's certainly more stable.

Whatever you decide, I would suggest you print some of their documentation and troubleshooting guides from the VMWare website.