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Re: VMWare VMWare hints and suggestions



On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 06:11:15AM +0000, Aharon Schkolnik 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 ?

Only Windows '95. 

According to Gates' law, proprietary software becomes twice as slow
every 18 months and therefore '98 runs at a quarter of '95's
speed. With VMWare this becomes a serious problem even on a fast
computer (I have Pentium III 500Mhz and it still ran so slow that I to
took the bother to install '95 just for VMWare, along with '98). Just
so that Chen doesn't think bad things about me I'll add I'm not using
VMWare anymore :)

Regarding trouble, VMWare provides a complete emulation of a PC
hardware (not necessraily of exactly the same hardware it runs
on). Therefore VMWare doesn't care which OS is running. You'll only
have to deal with configuring the virtual hardware, and then
installing or running the guest OS through VMWare in a totally normal
way (the guest OS is completely unaware). So it's a question of speed
and not headache.

> Any other hints/suggestions will be welcome.

First of all, try using Wine. A lot less trouble.

Also, in order for the guest OS to be able to communicate with Linux
and do networking with the outside world, you need to install a couple
of kernel modules that come with VMWare. These modules provide a
virtual networking interface for Linux that is connected to another
virtual interface in VMWare, emulating some popular ethernet card for
the guest OS (can't remember which). Now: These modules are
proprietary and so this means inserting code into the kernel that
neither you nor anyone else but VMWare know what it does, how secure
it is and how buggy. Reconsider :)

If you do install VMWare afterall, the best thing to do would be to
make a special partition just for it, and NOT let it have write-access
to any other partition. The guest OS thinks it's running along on the
computer and you can never tell what will happen. My little brother
actually ran fdisk from within a DOS box on Windows '95 inside VMWare
(when you're running full-screen it's easy to forget that you're
emulated), and wrote the wrong partition number, erasing Linux's swap
partition while some Linux programs were running... Linux went havoc
and trashed half my files. This is the most sophisticated way I've
ever heared of trashing a hardisk (although I'm sure other people on
linux-il could easily match this) and I was simultanously damn angry
and damn proud. Anyhow, safer would be to run VMWare as a regular user
who has write access only to the Windows '95 parition, and NOT mount
it under Linux while it's running. You can use Samba through the
network interface if you want them to share files.

If you run your guest OS sometimes in VMWare and sometimes directly,
it will get confused. It will act as if it files have been copied to a
different computer, because as far as what's inside VMWare is
concerned, it IS a different computer. Windows '95 and '98 are
actually quite good at identifying hardware and such, so this
shouldn't be a big problem. Just don't be surprised.

Also I've heared of a Free Software (Open Source) VMWare clone call
FreeMWare (so that you know exactly what you're putting in the kernel
and such). I don't know how it's doing now and if it's usable but you
could check.
 
> -- 
>   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     |


	- Adi Stav

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