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Re: VMWare VMWare hints and suggestions
>>>>> "Adi" == Adi Stav <stav@actcom.co.il> writes:
Adi> On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 06:11:15AM +0000, Aharon Schkolnik
Adi> wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> I am about to install VMWare. I just read the documentation. I
>> am seeking hints and suggestions.
>>
>> First of all, which M$ guest operation system should I install
>> ? I can probably get a hold of whatever I decide. I need it
>> basically for reading Hebrew e-mail, and maybe to use MS
>> Outlook calendar. Which M$ operating system will cause me the
>> minimum amount of headache ?
Adi> Only Windows '95.
I need one with Hebrew - will Hebrew enabled work ?
Adi> According to Gates' law, proprietary software becomes twice
Adi> as slow every 18 months and therefore '98 runs at a quarter
Adi> of '95's speed. With VMWare this becomes a serious problem
Adi> even on a fast computer (I have Pentium III 500Mhz and it
Adi> still ran so slow that I to took the bother to install '95
Adi> just for VMWare, along with '98). Just so that Chen doesn't
Adi> think bad things about me I'll add I'm not using VMWare
Adi> anymore :)
95 suits me just fine !
Adi> Regarding trouble, VMWare provides a complete emulation of a
Adi> PC hardware (not necessraily of exactly the same hardware it
Adi> runs on). Therefore VMWare doesn't care which OS is
Adi> running. You'll only have to deal with configuring the
Adi> virtual hardware, and then installing or running the guest OS
Adi> through VMWare in a totally normal way (the guest OS is
Adi> completely unaware). So it's a question of speed and not
Adi> headache.
>> Any other hints/suggestions will be welcome.
Adi> First of all, try using Wine. A lot less trouble.
I would love to, but I don't think I can read M$ Hebrew mail under
wine. Please correct me, if I'm wrong !
Adi> Also, in order for the guest OS to be able to communicate
Adi> with Linux and do networking with the outside world, you need
Adi> to install a couple of kernel modules that come with
Adi> VMWare. These modules provide a virtual networking interface
Adi> for Linux that is connected to another virtual interface in
Adi> VMWare, emulating some popular ethernet card for the guest OS
Adi> (can't remember which). Now: These modules are proprietary
Adi> and so this means inserting code into the kernel that neither
Adi> you nor anyone else but VMWare know what it does, how secure
Adi> it is and how buggy. Reconsider :)
Do these modules come with VMWare ? Are they installed in the
installation procedure, or separately ?
Adi> If you do install VMWare afterall, the best thing to do would
Adi> be to make a special partition just for it, and NOT let it
Adi> have write-access to any other partition. The guest OS thinks
Adi> it's running along on the computer and you can never tell
Adi> what will happen. My little brother actually ran fdisk from
Adi> within a DOS box on Windows '95 inside VMWare (when you're
Adi> running full-screen it's easy to forget that you're
Adi> emulated), and wrote the wrong partition number, erasing
Adi> Linux's swap partition while some Linux programs were
Adi> running... Linux went havoc and trashed half my files. This
Adi> is the most sophisticated way I've ever heared of trashing a
Adi> hardisk (although I'm sure other people on linux-il could
Adi> easily match this) and I was simultanously damn angry and
Adi> damn proud. Anyhow, safer would be to run VMWare as a regular
Adi> user who has write access only to the Windows '95 parition,
Adi> and NOT mount it under Linux while it's running. You can use
Adi> Samba through the network interface if you want them to share
Adi> files.
Thanks for the warning, and advice. Do I understand correctly that the
way to avoid this danger is to run VMWare under a non-privileged user ?
Adi> If you run your guest OS sometimes in VMWare and sometimes
Adi> directly, it will get confused. It will act as if it files
Adi> have been copied to a different computer, because as far as
Adi> what's inside VMWare is concerned, it IS a different
Adi> computer. Windows '95 and '98 are actually quite good at
Adi> identifying hardware and such, so this shouldn't be a big
Adi> problem. Just don't be surprised.
Thanks for the warning.
Adi> Also I've heared of a Free Software (Open Source) VMWare
Adi> clone call FreeMWare (so that you know exactly what you're
Adi> putting in the kernel and such). I don't know how it's doing
Adi> now and if it's usable but you could check.
Yeah, I think I checked it out, once, but I just checked again, and
its web page still says (in large type):
Warning: experimental code intended for developers only.
I doubt it's really useable, yet.
Adi> - Adi Stav
Thanks again !
--
The day is short, and the work is great, | Aharon Schkolnik
and the laborers are lazy, and the reward | Aharon@health.gov.il
is great, and the Master of the house is | +972 2 670 6851
impatient. - Ethics Of The Fathers Ch. 2 |
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