Re: [UUG/MLUG] VMware

[Tymm Twillman <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Well, I'm sure a lot of you have also downloaded the beta and tried it.
For those of you who haven't, I'll offer some basic impressions...

1) it's really sweet.  Even on a P-100 system, I'm able to run Windows NT
at a usable (though not exactly quick) speed.

2) The instructions say you should d/l and install a tools disk that they
supply on your guest operating system if it's Windows or Linux.  They're
not kidding.  The main advantage is you go from 16 color crappy VGA
(640x480) to whatever your window manager can handle... Also helps when
running vmware under X; without it, the cursor gets "trapped" on the
vmware screen when you click on it and you have to hit ctrl-alt-esc to get
back out.  with the tools, it just uses the host's X windows position for
location on the screen (i'm explaining this horribly, but hopefully you
get the idea)

3) Networking is done in a really sweet manner; nicely virtualized so you
can have multiple machines talking to each other on the host, or you can
have their traffic spit out/taken in an ethernet interface.  You can run
virtual servers, for example, all with their own IP's and everything.

4) processor load really isn't too bad.  hasn't gone much over 1 at any
point during my use so far (including installing netscape/RV player on the
"guest", etc)... and a great deal of time, even with the thing running,
load is close to 0.

5) Minix won't install :( I also didn't have much luck with Solaris, which
is supposedly supported.  Solaris's install was slower than molasses for
the parts that did work, too.  Although I *am* just on a P-100 :)

6) after leaving the thing up running win NT all night, my screen saver is
getting weird and just "saving" about 1/4 of the display.  weird.  Might
be something linked to my using AccelX instead of Xfree...  The running
Accel also means that I can't get full screen mode; I can only run in a
window, which kind of sucks (and is strange because before I installed the
tools thing, I *was* able to get full screen...)

7) the "undo file" disk stuff is a wonderful idea... you can set up the
system so it will write any changes to your hard disk image to an undo
log; blow the log away and everything reverts to the original.  Great for
testing out patches and software installs and the like.  

Anyhow, thought some people might be interested in hearing others'
experiences.  Oh, and the download is amazingly small: less than 2 M.
tools are another 1.5M.

-Tymm