VMWARE Workstation 5 for Linux

List Price: $332.38

Features:

• VMware virtualization layer maps physical hardware resources to the virtual machine's resources
• Each virtual machine has its own CPU, memory, disks, and I/O devices -- the full equivalent of a standard x86 machine.
• Full and linked clone capabilities for easily copying and sharing virtual machines

Customer Reviews:

Probaly Great If You Get it Installed [Posted on 2006-11-18]
The Linux version of this product is by far more complex, and requires compiling modules into the kernel. It doesn't work with SuSE Linux without deep knowledge into kernel compilation and advanced configuration. The support for this product is non-existance (except for the 30-days to browses their knowledge base). Their knowledge base basically says for SuSE you are SoL, and here's a reference to their kernel compilation guide.

I eventually got this product to work, no thanks to VMWare, but rather some How-Tos posted into OpenSuSE forums. This referred to some underground VMWare-Any-Any-Update perl scripts that auto-configure the environment for you. Before running the configuration scripts, you have to install needed Kernel modules and libraries as a pre-requisite (so knowledge on how to update your kernel and/or install packages is important).

Bottom line is that, you'll be more mileage out of free ware solutions like XenSource, as there'll be more support from the open community (especially being that the source is available). Still, given that some in the public domain have created these wonderful How-Tos and configuration scripts, one can actually install and use VMWare without being a kernel engineer (sarcasm there).

Alternatively, If you have access to full-fledge windows and linux boxes, consider getting the Windows evaluation to create the virtual machines, and then use the free VMWare Server + Player on Linux. Otherwise, for more novice to intermediate users, maybe (dare I say this *cringes*) the Windows VMWare is a safer bet for tinkering.

The Future of Computing with Multiple OSs at the Same Time is Here! (Can also boot Mac OSX on a PC!!!) [Posted on 2006-12-10]
Now we can truly virtualize as many Operating Systems (OSs) as we like on a modern rig, all with full networking capabilities that run anywhere between 100% and 75% of the speed as if the OS was actually hard installed on the system. However when we are talking systems with above 512 MB of RAM and better than 2.0 Ghz, you are never going to go with a single OS machine or a multiboot/dualboot when you have seen VMware in action. I have booted Windows XP (you can boot Win 3.1, Win 2K also if you want), Linux Slackware (one of the unsupported Linux distros that works and I don't see why all Linux versions should work), FreeBSD6 (6 is unsupported but works), Solaris 10 (no problem) and I have personally seen the Apple MAC OS X Tiger running on it, but running OSx86 is illegal. However I have seen it on VMware on a PC. You can load all this on a notebook and have all of these OSs running on it at the same time, even full screen mode and it just looks so unreal, the kind of stuff that moves your soul when you see OSx86 with networking running on a PC Laptop. The fact you can toggle between the OSs without needing to boot only one OS and the presence of OSx86 makes this an absolute must. A few things need to be noted though. Sometimes you should use VIRTUAL IDE Virtual HDDs instead of SCCIs in VMware virtual hardware setup. In VMWARE BIOS (F2) you sometimes must change large disk access mode to OTHER rather than DOS, especially for Linux systems. If you can't get proper screen resolutions sizes, install VMware Tools from VMware, right click on OSs tab, "Install VMware Tools" and this mounts the tools inside the OSs in the /cdrom drive. Copy it and install it and you should have all the resolutions you need. Anyway what are you waiting for? This is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Note: Kernel compiling is for advanced Linux users and if you are going to be opening up the Kernel then SuSE is not for you. Advanced users use Slackware or something more professional than SuSE or else you will hit problems. I have used SuSE, great for newbies, not for expert work. VMware does support Linux. There are dozens of VMware channels on IRC. 24/7 support and their support website is good.

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