Les Mikesell wrote:
David Timms wrote:
WipeOut wrote:
Yes.. Vmware Server is free..
Correct, but not free as in open source, the license agreement is
more restrictive, hence fedora can't include it
> You still need to get a license key from
Vmware but thats free too.. :)
This also is a blocker even if the license was an acceptable open
source license - if you install the package it refuses to run {until
you retrieve and enter a license key}.
xen (and other vm technologies) virtual machine in f7 now have a nice
gui, that makes it heaps easier to set up.
Vmware will run unmodified OS versions (as in windows too) in machines
that don't have VT capable CPU's. The virtual machine images are
portable across Windows, Mac, and Linux hosts. VMware can run the
vast number of downloadable pre-built images here:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/. Xen may have other
advantages but there are still reasons to run VMware - and the price
is right.
I just installed VMware Workstation 6 on a Fedora 7 host after spending
a couple weeks using xen, again on a Fedora 7 host. My big problem with
xen is that it lacks a nice graphical console that I can do real work in
with a bunch of guest OSes without straining my eyes to see the tiny,
non-resizeable windows.
VMWare is like a breath of fresh air to me. There is copious
documentation telling me step by step how to get started and what to do.
I did run into some trouble with the vmware-config.pl script owing to
the 2.6.22 kernel, but I found a patch on the VMWare forums and after a
little trying, the install succeeded. I had no trouble installing the
CentOS 5 guest (I needed a driver floppy because CentOS 5's installer
doesn't have a model for the Realtek 8169B...found the needed image file
on the CentOS 5 forums.) For me the best news is that with the vmware
tools, I can resize the guest OS window into something I can actually
see and work with. There's a lot of technical documentation on the
VMWare site I can refer to. It helps me get up and running fast. I have
a few problems, the worst is that the guest OS's clock falls behind the
actual time by a big difference -- 45 minutes slow with my first long
work session in the guest. I hope to find a fix for that.
So far I am very pleased with VMWare and I'm just coming to appreciate
how nice virtualization is.
Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
