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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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