J_K9 @ Linux » HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC

HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC

December 17, 2005 on 6:59 pm | In HOW TO |

Many of you will undoubtedly have heard of VMware, but for those who have not, here is a little introduction:

VMware is powerful desktop virtualization software for software developers/testers and enterprise IT professionals that runs multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single PC.

But you can erase that bit about it being for “software developers/testers” and “enterprise IT professionals”, because I’m going to show you just how simple running another Operating System on your PC is.

VMware Workstation has always been (and still is) a commercial product, and you have to pay a fairly large sum to get your hands on it, but VMware have now released a free application dubbed “VMware Player”, which can run virtual machines produced by VMware and a few other companies. Yet, with some simple hacks, we can use VMware Player to run any x86 Operating System we like.

Please note that this hack is no longer required for there is a much simpler and better method of creating, running and managing virtual machines in the form of the free VMware Server. Please download and install that instead, and follow its simple procedures to create VMs rather than this tutorial.

Ingredients

VMware Player, which can be downloaded from VMware.com.
OS.zip, which we will use to install the Operating System. (mirror)
Either the .iso of the install CD for the Operating System you would like to run, or its CD.

With these, we can concoct the perfect potion.

Getting the OS up and running

First of all, install VMware Player onto your computer - it is available for both Windows and Linux.

Then, once you have done that, expand the OS.zip file you downloaded. A directory called “OS” should be created, and inside it there will be two files: OS.vmdk and OS.vmx. Switch to that directory and open up OS.vmx in your favourite text editor.

The third line in that file is: memsize = “512″. Here you can set how many MBs of your RAM you would like VMware Player to take up when running your Operating System. I have set it to 512MB, which is at my disposal, yet you really only need about 128-256MB for the average Linux distribution. As my Operating System, I have decided to install Mandriva Linux 2006 (which I have the DVD .iso of).

So, having put the .iso for it (Mandriva-Linux-2006-Free-DVD.i586.iso) in my C:\ directory, I reopen the OS.vmx file. Here, in the line that reads:
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso”, I would change it to:
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\Mandriva-Linux-Free-DVD.i586.iso”.
If you have, for example, the Ubuntu install CD .iso (let’s call it Ubuntu-5.10.iso), place it in your C:\ directory. Then, alter the line in OS.vmx from
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso” to
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\Ubuntu-5.10.iso”.

Note: If you would like to install an Operating System via your CD-ROM drive, then edit the OS.vmx file, replacing the following lines:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-image”

with these:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”

Ok, now that you’ve configured how much of your RAM you would like to dedicate to this process and pointed it to the correct .iso/CD drive, it’s time for some action.

Open up the OS.vmx file in VMware Player, and you should see something like this to begin with:

Make sure the CD-ROM button along the top bar is pressed, and as soon as the above screen appears press Esc. That will take to you a list of bootable devices, and on this list go down to “CD-ROM” and hit Enter.

Now, VMware Player will go to the “CD-ROM drive” (which you have pointed to a .iso), and so the installation of the Operating System will begin.
Hint: Do not be afraid to let the OS format the “hard drive” and automatically partition it within the virtual machine, because all it will be affecting is the OS.vmdk file - which will expand as you go storing more information on it (and is a maximum of 107GB).
Here’s a screenshot of Mandriva’s installation in progress:

And, the finished result:

Excellent - now you can make your own virtual machines! There are also a few prebuilt ones available for download on VMware’s Virtual Machine Centre.

-If you have had any issues while trying this out, please feel free to leave me a message below or drop me an email, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Extra Note:

Some Operating Systems require more than one CD to be installed (example: FreeBSD). This is not a problem when you have the actual CDs, but when you plan to install the OS from a bunch of ISOs, the situation becomes slightly more problematic. Here is what you can do (FreeBSD is being used as an example):

Change the .vmx file to read:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\FreeBSD.iso”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-image”

Then do the following:

Move the first FreeBSD ISO to your C:\ directory (or /home/user/ for Linux users), and rename it from “6.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso” to “FreeBSD.iso”. Good, now boot up VMware Player and install it as you would any other OS; but, when the installer asks you to insert the second CD, remove FreeBSD.iso from the C:\ directory and copy the second ISO there. Then, rename the second ISO (”6.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso“) to FreeBSD.iso, and press Enter to continue the installation. Voilà!

Add to:

193 Comments »

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Great, I will give this a try. Thanks

Comment by Roomba — December 18, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows 2000
Where is the image installed? Can it be copied to another machine?

Comment by Joe — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
It installs in VMplayer’s install dir ie c:\program files\…. w/ .vmdk and .vmx extensions. and yes just copy those files to any computer and load up in VMplayer. Well this is how it works in VMware and i am assuming player works the same way.

Comment by rankinreb — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
does it work with the install or LiveCd version of a Linux distro? or both?

Comment by HellSpawn — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Thanks for this great tutorial

Comment by Pixel X — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
How would this work with a jump drive?

Comment by IronChef — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
HellSpawn - It works with both!

IronChef, with a jump drive, you could type the following into your .vmx file:

# Replace E:\ with the Windows drive letter for your jump drive
ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “E:\”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”

That should do the trick!

Thanks to all of you for your kind comments!

Oh, and Joe - The image you would like to use does not need to be on your computer, but it helps if it is because then VMware Player can access it locally rather than over a network/the internet.

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Hello there, I have a question. Once i do this (Ubuntu Linux) does it run as a real OS on my pc? i.e can i save files and etc?

Comment by nouhad — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Hi,

Yes, you can save files and settings and - well, anything! (You’ve been granted a maximum of 107GB in which to do this).

What I’m still trying to discover is how to transfer those files from the virtual machine onto your computer, but I’ll post the results when I find out.

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
When VMware had hobbyist pricing a few years ago I bought a copy but the current price is way too high. This is a terrific workaround - thanks so much.

Comment by xinu — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla 1.7.7 on Windows 2000
Whoops posted too soon, I didn’t notice that VMware ACE is available for $99. Think I’ll stick with this solution anyway though…

Comment by xinu — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla 1.7.7 on Windows 2000
[…] HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC Filed under: HOW TO — J_K9 at 6:59 pm on Saturday, December 17, 2005 […]

Pingback by LiGuoTang’s Blog ^_^ » 15分钟内从你的Windows XP里运行Mandriva Linux 2006 — December 18, 2005 #
Using WordPress 1.5.2
xinu - I’m glad you’ve found it useful!

In fact, I’ve just found out something really cool: I know that my wireless card does not work with Linux. But, as I’m connected wirelessly on Windows and I’m running Ubuntu 5.10 on VMware Player, the eth0 connection on Ubuntu seems to be linking to my Windows connection! Either way, the internet’s working on my VMwared Ubuntu, so I’m happy.

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Hi,

Just wondering: how is this different from, say, running the Ubuntu LiveCD?

I’m just curious as to what is different about running Ubuntu via VMWare, as opposed to the LiveCD version…

Many thanks,

planetthoughtful

Comment by planetthoughtful — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
When you run Ubuntu under Vmware, it runs as a virtual machine. That is, a computer system within a computer system. When you run Ubuntu as a live CD, you will not be running Windows at all. The virtual machine has the advantage that you have two OS running at the same time, and you don’t have to reboot your computer.

Comment by tog — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
very useful and informative. ive been playing with this all day since reading your article. i never realised it was so easy to set up a VM.
i am currently posting this comment from knoppix running as a VM inside windows. it was the one ISO i just happened to have sat on my desktop.

thanks!

Comment by duclicsic — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 on Debian GNU/Linux
PlanetThoughtful: As Tog rightly said, running Ubuntu under VMware Player has the advantage that you can run more than one OS at the same time. You also don’t need to plug in any external hardware to save your settings or your documents, as all that information is stored within the .vmdk file (which is essentially a virtual hard drive containing the installed filesystem). If you think of the differences between an installed version of Ubuntu and the Live CD version, it’s the same for Ubuntu on VMware Player and the Ubuntu Live CD.

Duclicsic: Thank you! Yeah, I’ve spent the past two days just searching for some of the ISOs I’ve got scattered round my hard drive and installing them! It’s really good fun…

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
I must have missed something. I downloaded vmware player and installed it, but can’t find OS.zip file. Where do I find that file? Thanks for help.

Comment by jschoenf — December 18, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
This is pretty cool idea if it is legal and in compliance with VMWare Player’s EULA.
Im surprised that this has not been slashdotted as yet.
Also you might want to download OS.zip via a corlaized link to reduce the load on yoru webserver.
Here is the coralized link
http://linux.wolphination.com.nyud.net:8090/data/OS.zip

Comment by patelbhavesh — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
There is also another virtualization software that I have used called Parallels Workstation 2.0. It is commercial software, but it is only $49.99 normally (special of $41.99 until Dec 31st), so it is reasonable. They have a 45 day free trial, and it lets you create the virtual machine instead of having to use a work around like this article. I have it running on my FC4 machine with Windows XP as my guest OS, and so far it is stable and reasonably fast. You can check it out at the Parallels website.

BTW: i have no ties to parallels at all, I just found the software when they were beta testing and it does what I need for a reasonable price.

Comment by sblaydes — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Fedora Linux
This is great and seems to work. However, I’m kinda scared to format the 107 virtual GB. Is anything actually formatted? I don’t really want to lose data.

Comment by kronus — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
jschoenf: The OS.zip file is linked up at the top of the article. Or just click here.

patelbhavesh: Yup, it is allowed by the EULA (or rather, it is not disallowed)! Thanks for you comment and for the coralised link - I didn’t know about the Coral project before!

sblaydes: Yes, I’ve heard quite a lot about Parallels Workstation - it’s meant to be pretty good. But in the meantime (I’m a bit low on cash at the moment) I’m going to carry on running virtual machines this way.

kronus: Don’t worry, go ahead with it. It is a virtual hard drive and will not affect your own hard drive at all if you format it - it didn’t affect mine. (The 107GB drive which you’re going to format is not actually 107GB - it is the .vmdk which can expand up to 107GB if needed).

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Thanks for quick response. I just finished install of Unbuntu, it works great. I guess I’m getting old and couldn’t see the difference in color for the link.

Comment by jschoenf — December 18, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
Ive gotten a distro installed and it works great! The only problem I am having is that now the CD-ROM always points to the ISO. Is there a way to get it where I can use my actual CD-ROM drive?

Comment by hardyboy — December 18, 2005 #
Using Opera 8.51 on Windows XP
jschoenf: No problem!

hardyboy: Great! And sure - just do the following:

…edit the OS.vmx file, replacing the following lines:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\blahblahblah.iso”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-image”

with these:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”

Comment by J_K9 — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Thanks! The answer is obvious now that I see it. Thanks for pointing it out to me

Comment by hardyboy — December 18, 2005 #
Using Opera 8.51 on Windows XP
I tried installing Ubuntu from a Install CD ,but I dint go beyond the point where it asks for partitioning as I scared that I might lose all my system data.
Please advice on how to proceed with the partitioning.

Comment by Sharjeel Sayed — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
J_K9 said: What I’m still trying to discover is how to transfer those files from the virtual machine onto your computer, but I’ll post the results when I find out.

I downloaded a debian .iso in linux using bittorrent (since I didn’t want to install bittorrent onto my real machine. And then I went hunting for my file on my real hard drive that I downloaded. Unfortunately, everything’s stored inside of the .vmdk file. I was running the BrowserAppliance.zip (Ubuntu) from VMWare, and since it had networking enabled, I decided to just transfer the .iso from the virtual machine to the real machine over the net, as though I had two seperate computers and I was just sending it across the room. It works great. Hopefully you have networking enabled on your virtual OS.

Comment by Linux — December 18, 2005 #
Using Konqueror 3.4 on Debian GNU/Linux
thanks a lot J_K9… this tutorial kicks ass btw

Comment by HellSpawn — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
one more question though… where will it be installed?
(sorry if I ask stupid questions, but I never installed Linux trough VMware before..)

Comment by HellSpawn — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
the vmware program will be installed under C:\Program Files\VMWare\VMware Player by default
the OS will be installed in the same folder as the corresponding vmx file (wherever you happen to place this on your hard drive).
files you download within the OS will be stored inside of the virtual hard drive (vmdk). to retrieve files that you download within the virtual environment, transfer the files over the network.

Comment by user — December 18, 2005 #
Using Opera 8.51 on Windows XP
I’m trying to use my Suse install dvd, but it won’t work. I used the settings that you provided for the cd drive, would it be different for dvds?

Comment by FluffyBunny — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
thanks, but installation of VMware reboots my system before setup is complete. Any ideas someone?

Comment by kris — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
If you’re using this on a Linux Host and booting from a CD, you need to REMOVE the line ide1:0.fileName. VMPlayer complains mightly about that line…

Comment by crackers — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Linux
I’m writing this from a successful Ubuntu 5.10 install with VMWare. I installed VMWare onto my XP box and then I installed Ubuntu from the downloaded iso.

There was one issue… Once the Ubuntu install is finished, Ubuntu will notify you that it is going to reboot. It will also tell you to remove the CD from your drive. To reboot successfully, you must uncheck the CD-ROM option in VMWare and then in VMWare go to Player->Reset in the menu bar. This will reboot the system and finish the installation of Ubuntu. Thank you for this blog entry. VMWare is a great tool.

-Nick

Comment by Nick Fessel — December 18, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
hardyboy: No problem!

Sharjeel Sayed: Trust me, it will be fine if you allow Ubuntu to erase the whole “hard drive” and partition it itself. The “hard drive” is just the .vmdk file, so do not worry - it should not erase a single thing on your real one.

Linux: Really? I didn’t think that your actual PC is recognised as part of the network by the virtual machine (although it makes sense as I noticed that the virtual machine shares the real one’s internet connection). Thanks for making that clear!

HellSpawn: Thanks! And as for your second question, I think “user” below has answered it pretty well (thanks man). Hehe!

FluffyBunny: That’s quite weird. It shouldn’t be different because it’s a DVD drive… VMware Player probably isn’t detecting your DVD drive, so I guess you might have to make an ISO out of the SUSE install DVD. On Linux, that can be done by
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=my_cd_image.iso
where /dev/cdrom is your DVD drive, and on Windows there are shareware tools like MagicISO which you can download a demo of. I hope it works out. (Take a look at crackers’ post below which may help.)

kris: What are you trying to run the Player on - Linux or Windows? (Contact me by email if you wish.)

crackers: Thanks for that bit of info - I might try installing VMware Player on Ubuntu tomorrow, so I’ll give it a shot.

Nick Fessel: Thank you, and I’m glad you managed to install Ubuntu! (It’s my favourite distro)

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Anyone tried OSX yet? I’m familiar with projects/hacks that enable OSX on an x86, so it should work in VM.

Comment by Neb — December 19, 2005 #
Using Safari 416.13 on Mac OS X
Thank you!!!
MagicISO did it!

Comment by FluffyBunny — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Ned: I’ve just sent my friend an email asking him to try OS X (for x86) out. I think it does work, but with anything less than 512MB RAM I can see it running very slowly…

FluffyBunny: No problem!

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Just a quick question. Does VM allow you to easily transfer files between both operating systems? Like drag and drop?

Comment by Ryan — December 19, 2005 #
Using Opera 8.51 on Windows XP
Ryan: Hi! Well, the process is not as easy as that - in fact, there doesn’t seem to be an inbuilt method of transferring files from the .vmdk to your computer. But, a workaround is to either upload the files to an external FTP server, burn your files onto a CD and then mount that on the computer/virtual machine, or just transferring via a “virtual network” (I’m in the process of trying this one out).

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
This is a plug, but I think you’ll appreciate it, you can get various OS VMware disks from:

http://www.4pi1.com/

You can get up and running really quick with many OS without having to go through the installation process.

Comment by Dukun Sakti — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
hey! that’s really cool!

Comment by Levi Sandoval — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
I was wondering if you could get this program to completely stand alone on a CD or a external hard-drive. All I really need it to do is I can put a CD in to a windows based computer, open the program and load up a Linux OS without installing VMplayer onto the local hard-drive.

All input is appreciated.

Jared

Comment by Jared — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
# Replace E:\ with the Windows drive letter for your jump drive
ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “E:\”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”

This also works for adding cd/dvd drive access once the distro is installed. Just modify the .vmx file and then you can see that drive.

Comment by ethan — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Tene gnu/linux y windows al mismo tiempo

Usando al reciente vmware player (un programa gratuito) podes tener virtual machines, donde podemos usar varios sistemas operativos al mismo tiempo.

en ese sitio explican como hacer funcionar todo esto y una breve explicacion para “instalar” un nu…

Trackback by meneame.net — December 19, 2005 #
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Run other Oses on your pc

There are occasions where you probably want to run a different os without really installing it. If you are running windows you probably would like to refresh your linux skills but dislike the idea of installing it on one of your partitions. The guys a…

Trackback by gHacks — December 19, 2005 #
Using WordPress 1.5.2
Dukun Sakti: Thanks for that link! Pity it’s not available for free download though…

Levi Sandoval: Yup, it sure is!

Jared: You could definitely install it onto an external hard drive and that would work. Simply install VMware Player onto it and then put OS.zip and the ISOs on there, and then install the OS as normal. You could probably do it with a CD if you already made the virtual machine on your PC, and then dragged that along with the installed VMware Player files onto it to be burnt. Nice idea!

Ethan: I’ve actually run into a bit of trouble with this, because even with autodetect off VMware Player still sometimes says that I cannot make a directory ide1:0. If any of you have discovered a solution to this, please let me know.

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
J_K9 said: What I’m still trying to discover is how to transfer those files from the virtual machine onto your computer, but I’ll post the results when I find out.

Is is possible to see the virtualized operating system on the network? (ie: setup filesharing and optionally map a network drive…)

Comment by x3n1 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
Well just booted up a kubuntu .iso I had laying about and went straight into smb://administrator@f22-a/c$/ and read/write to a file i had lying around… it worked!

next time we should get into setting up SMB and the likes for filesharing but this will cover the basic stuff

cheers
WT

Comment by x3n1 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
X3n1: I could see Ubuntu (on VMware) from Windows, but I wasn’t able to access it (didn’t know the username and password because I was using the Browsing Appliance). - I’ll try it from Ubuntu! Thanks for the heads-up!

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
Guys. I am trying to install FC from CDs but it doesn’t work. It keeps on doing network install stuff and then stops to say that no bootable CD or floppy is detected. My CD drive is a combo DVD+CD-Writer one. Is it the root of the problems? Should I use MagicISO to turn my FC3 CDs into ISOs and then get started with it?

Comment by anhhung — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
i need help here.. i’ve installed the VMware, i’ve download the OS.zip file and extract it.. i’ve edit the OS.vmx as you told before to point it to the .iso file or put “auto detect” if installing from cd..

what im trying to do is install Ubuntu, using my installation CD, so i make the “ide1:0.fileName” value as “auto detect”..

once i launch VMware, it prompt me to show the OS.vmx location, so i browse my directory, and point it to the edited file.. BUT, this is what i got..

“Unable to open kernel device “\\.\vmx86″: The system cannot find the file specified. Did you reboot after installing VMware Player?”

whats wrong here? i’ve try to change the “auto detect” to “E:\” (my cd-rom), but this error still occured.. any idea?

when i think bout it, this error just asking me wether i’ve reboot my pc or not. FYI, i’ve reboot my pc many times, hoping that this error wont come out, but it still shows up..

anyone can help me? did i missed something? really need help here guys.. thanks!

Comment by Pai — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
anhhung: The easiest solution would be to install MagicISO and just turn the FC3 CDs into ISOs (or download the FC4 DVD), although I’m really not sure why that CD-ROM error has come up. Quite a few people have had problems with the “auto detect” feature actually, but it must’ve worked for you (at least to start with) because if not the network install would not have come up. Is there any chance that when you get to that part the CD-ROM icon on the top bar becomes deselected? That could be the root of the problem…

Pai: You could try right-clicking the .vmx file, selecting “Open With…” and then clicking on “VMware Player”. Otherwise, try reinstalling the application - because it may be corrupt. I hope it works out!

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC

Tutorial che ci spiega come, grazie a VMware Player, è possibile far girare più sistemi operativi sul proprio Pc (sia per Win che per Linux).
http://linux.wolphination.com/?p=18

Trackback by Smoker's Area's blog — December 19, 2005 #
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This works great for me but I found that the default virtual hard disk was too big (104 GB). You can actually edit the OS.vmdk file by hand with a hex editor to grow or shrink the virtual drive.

Near the beginning of OS.vmdk (at offset 0×200) is a section that looks like this:
# Disk DescriptorFile.version ……

There are a few important variables here that you can overwrite. Obviously do not change the length of the file when doing this.

The important variables are:

Extent Description.RW 209715200
ddb.geometry.cylinders=”208050″
…geometry.heads=”16″
…geometry.sectors=”63″

The first number is the size of the disk in 512 byte blocks. The default is 2091715200*512 which is around 104 GB (depending on if you use base 10 or base 2 GB). The remaining 3 numbers, when multiplied together, should equal the first number. By default they don’t (which is strange, but I’m only reverse engineering here, so VMWare may be up to something sneaky).

In my case, I only wanted a 2 GB disk as I was installing QNX and it doesn’t allow you to easily pick partition sizes.

I changed the number of cylinders to 004050 (noticed that I overwrote the first digits with 0s to keep the file length the same). I then multiplied 4050 x 16 x 63 to get 4082400, so I overwrote the first number with 004082400.

If you need a much larger disk, then you MAY be able to insert characters in the file to make the key numbers longer. Just make sure that you remove enough 0×00 characters after this short section so that the file size remains the same and data structures later in the file are at the same offset. Note that I haven’t tried this myself, it just seems to make sense.

Comment by Matt — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Matt: Thank you for your comment! However, I’ll explain a much easier method I used to create OS.vmdk.

First of all, download an app called QEMU (available for Linux or for Windows), and extract the files.
Then, in Windows go to Start->Run, type in “cmd” and press Enter. In Linux, press Alt+F2 and type in “xterm” (or another terminal application).
Within the console, change to the directory you extracted the QEMU files to and type in the following:

On Windows:
qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk [filename].vmdk [size]G
eg: qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk OS.vmdk 100G

On Linux:
./qemu-img create -f vmdk [filename].vmdk [size]G
eg: ./qemu-img create -f vmdk OS.vmdk 100G

Both those examples would create new VMware virtual machine files of size 100GB.

And there you go! A new .vmdk file, just the size you want it to be, and without having to edit any hex.

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
How to run another OS on your PC

The J_K9 Linux blog has posted a tutorial for using previously-mentioned VMware to run your own virtual machine from inside Windows. VMware Workstation has always been (and still is) a commercial product, and you have to pay a fairly large…

Trackback by Lifehacker — December 19, 2005 #
Using MovableType 3.17
Hi guys, im going through the Ubuntu install now and it wants me to make a partition?

Will this affect the hard drive on the PC that i am doing this on?

Im surprised that this part of the install isn’t covered here.

Comment by Spagman — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
I have loaded Ubuntu 5.10 on my XP Home PC and the VM works great.

Question, would it be possible to also load Linspire and have three OSes on my PC..If not, how would I delete Ubuntu to load Linspire?

Thanks for any info.

Comment by Twinrick — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
Spagman: It has been covered in many of the posts - just let Ubuntu “erase” the partition and partition it automatically (see post 28 for details).

Twinrick: Sure! Just extract OS.zip again - but rename the expanded folder to “Linspire” or something (be careful not to rename the files inside the folder though, because there are some lines of code in the .vmx which refer to OS.vmdk).

—
For future reference, I found the following while browsing Google-

In the OS.vmx file, there is a line which states:
guestOS = other24xlinux

This means that you would like to run a Linux distribution with kernel version 2.4.x as the virtual machine. Here are some other options (although I don’t think it is necessary to change it):

# “dos”
# “freebsd” ………… Generic FreeBSD distribution
# “netware6″ ……….. Netware 6
# “other24xlinux” …….Generic distribution with the Linux 2.4.x kernel
# “other26xlinux ……. Generic distribution with the Linux 2.6.x kernel
# “otherlinux” ……… Generic distribution with the Linux kernel
# “redhat” …………. Red Hat Linux
# “solaris10″ ………. Solaris 10
# “suse” …………… SUSE Linux
# “win95″ ………….. Windows 95
# “win98″ ………….. Windows 98
# “winme” ………….. Windows ME
# “winnt” ………….. Windows NT
# “winnetstandard” ….. Windows Server 2003
# “winxphome” ………. Windows XP Home
# “winxppro” ……….. Windows XP Professional

—

One last thing: I didn’t have much luck transferring files via FTP on Ubuntu (which was a virtual machine on VMware), because while I was able to setup the FTP server there (and Windows could ’see’ the FTP server), when I tried connecting to it from Windows there was no username/password combination which would work. This may be because I was trying it on the Browser-Appliance (prebuilt by VMware), so I will try it again on one of my VMs.

Although, I found a different method of transferring files: plugging in that dang external hard drive! (See link below for details).

Screenie

Comment by J_K9 — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
It is possible to transfer files from the host (the pc running VMware Player) to the guest (the pc running in the virutal machines) and vice-versa.

One must first have networking, and be able to deterimine the ip addresses then you use any kind of network transfer.

I prefer scp, and that requires the ssh package. You may have
to figure out how to install packages and turn on services.
Ubunto has a “Connect to Server” menu item which picked up my host windows shared directories.

Sorry I can’t post all the details and tutorial - but it is possible.

Comment by Mike — December 19, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 0.7 on Linux
thanks J_K9

Comment by Spagman — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Mike: Don’t worry about it - I’ll work it out eventually…

Spagman: My pleasure!

Comment by J_K9 — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Anyone know how I can configure Ubuntu through VM Player to connect to the internet? I have a wireless card that is the access for Windows. Any ideas?

Comment by Jon — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
VMWare Player Runs Non-Pre-Built Stuff

J_K9 @ Linux � HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC Directions (vague because not OS specific) on how to get VMWare Player to run whatever you feel like….

Trackback by Sillyones.net — December 20, 2005 #
Using MovableType 3.2
@J_K9

Sorry for taking so long to reply to your email, this should help:

open settings:/Network/ and fire up ‘Local Network Browsing’ and enter your login and password and hit ok.

probably you will be able to access smb://administrator@j_k9/c$ — if not then try smb2k (in the kmenu) and/or email me and ill see what i can do

… as for me, time to get kontact up and running so i can reply to your email…

best of luck
WT

Comment by x3n1 — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
DSL Embedded is good solution for beginners who want to use Linux on their Windows box. All it needs is unzipping and running.

Comment by AquilaX — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
J_K9 : I hadtried to click on the CD-ROM button many times but network install keeps showing up…sigh. Then I got MagicISO and makes disk 1 of FC3 and 4 to see if it worked but it did not actually. I mean, after starting VMware Player with OS.vmx pointing to the location of the ISO, nothing happened except for the blank screen. And I am wondering how can I tell VMware to understand that I have 4 separate ISOs and how to make add it to the config file ( because a normal FC installation often requires up to 4 iso)– in case it works.
PS : Thanks for the reminder, I got the site from a friend of mine and haven’t got any idea which to put on it.

Comment by ANHHUNG — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
John: Have you taken a look at the Browser Appliance? That is basically Ubuntu 5.10 enabled for the internet - but so far all the systems I have installed on VMware Player have run on the internet automatically…

x3n1: I’ve tried what you said (in Kubuntu), but when the dialog box comes up asking for the username and password, “Administrator” and the password do not work. So, after clicking “OK”, an error comes up, and then the authorisation box pops up again. Thanks for your contribution so far!

AquilaX: Thanks for that info - I might check out DSL Embedded to see what it’s like!

ANHHUNG: No problem! Oh, and about installing more than one disk: I put a little note at the end of the article last night. Take a look above for details…

Comment by J_K9 — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
J_K9 : Thanks. It works now. The only problem now is that I have only 256 MB of RAM and WMPlayer runs damn slowly. I am considering whether or not should I turn my dual boot PC into Windows and VM PLayer alliance. Hmm…
Any suggestions? I have very few free space available and dual boot is eating up my hdd :((

Comment by ANHHUNG — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Does anyone know how to setup a bridged connection? With coLinux its possible to set up a Bridged or TAP connection where servers(httpd, ftpd, etc…) on the virtual OS can be accessed via an IP address. Anyone know how to set that up here?

Comment by Phileas — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
will this work to run Mac OSX on a linux box (I have Ubuntu Breezy)?
Thanks

Comment by disanpoter — December 20, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows 2000
ANHHUNG: Is it a desktop? If so, it shouldn’t be too difficult to add an extra stick of RAM (which will greatly increase performance). In fact, you can pick up some pretty cheep DDR2 RAM off some websites - see Froogle for details!

Phileas: I think the process is exactly the same - once you set up a server on your virtual machine, you can access it from your computer (or at least I could see my virtual FTP server, but had problems connecting to it).

disanpoter: Yes, I’m pretty sure this will work with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) for x86.

Comment by J_K9 — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
[…] Before I upgraded my computer and I was still trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I had installed Ubuntu and Suse 10 think maybe my Computer had been effected by a Virus. I fell in love with Suse 10 instantly, especially the interface and ease of use. I never reaslised Linux could be so user friendly too. Anyway after upgrading my computer. I was planning to install suse again. when I happened to come across this really cool delicious bookmark link here teaching how to install a Linux Operating system inside a Windows Operating system. Using a Virtual Machine. So I am trying it out and if it works it will be just so cool to run linux as application inside a Windows XP. […]

Pingback by The Bluesaze Blog » Blog Archive » Installing and running Linux inside Windows XP “Virtual Machine” — December 20, 2005 #
Using WordPress MU
This is also possible using an entirely free program … qemu. I’ve got Windows XP and Solaris 10 VMs running on my Gentoo Linux box.

Cool either way!

Comment by smoyer — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Linux
How to Run other OS’s on your PC

For all you nerds out there like me who like to run multiple operating systems, but hate having to reboot, here’s an free, easy way to run one inside the other (or vice versa) using VMware’s free player.
HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC
…

Trackback by Journeyism — December 20, 2005 #
Using WordPress 1.5.2
Just in case anyone has an existing VMware - I had to uninstall my old VMware (v2) to avoid video driver errors when starting Player.

Comment by xinu — December 20, 2005 #
Using Mozilla 1.7.7 on Windows 2000
smoyer: Good stuff!

xinu: Sorry for not mentioning that - VMware Player may conflict with any existing versions of VMware, so you must uninstall them first if you would like to use the Player (although I think it says this on the VMware site).

Comment by J_K9 — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Very nice tutorial, thanks for posting it. I installed OpenBSD on a virtual machine on my Windows laptop and it’s working great.

Comment by chud — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Windows XP
Update on my problem connecting to the internet. It seems to be Kerio Personal Firewall that is blocking the connection but I can’t figure out how to permit the VMWare Player to connect. I have allowed all connections for VMWare Player and set up a custom rule for vmware-vmx.exe but it still wont let it through. Not sure why. Works fine with the firewall disabled.

Comment by Jon — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
chud: Thank you, and I’m glad it’s been put to good use!

Jon: Well, at least now you have located the source of the problem. Try the following, which may work: Open up Control Panel and go to Network Connections. Once you’re there, right-click on your main network connection (the one you use for the internet) and select Properties. Flick to the Advanced tab, and then, under the Internet Connection Sharing box, tick “Allow other network users to connect….” and select the VMware Network Adapter.
Good luck!

Comment by J_K9 — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
I’ve had problems trying to get the latest Knoppix to do a hard disk install, keeps complaining about the partitions even although I’ve setup a 2GB ext2 and 512mb linux swap.

Any ideas?

Comment by Doodle — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Doodle: KNOPPIX needs 2.3GB to be installed. I quote from their FAQ:

Q: Is there other way that does not use so much space? Perhaps by having a compressed file system?

A: Yes, you can install Knoppix in 700 megs instead of 2.3 gigs for the real install, but it will run as if it were from a physical CD, so you cannot install anything, unless you do a ‘normal’ install. Each time you boot your hardware will need to be redetected. This is not for novices. For more information see the HOWTO for the Hd Based HowTo hard drive based install.

Comment by J_K9 — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Thanks, I re-setup the partitions using the command line cfdisk instead of the QTParted and it installed okay.

Comment by Doodle — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Doodle: Great!

Comment by J_K9 — December 21, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
I am running Windows XP Professional x64 edition with an AMD Athlon 4000+ and 2 GB or ram, but I ran into a problem… I am able to access and run VMware player perfectly fine, although when I tried to install windows xp professional x64 onto VMware player, I get an error message saying:

“Attempting to load an x64 operating system, however this CPU is not compatible with x64 mode. Please install a 32-bit X86 operating system.

Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.”

Does this mean that I will never be able to install an x64 based operating system?

Comment by Jordan — December 21, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP 64 bit
Jordan: I’m afraid that because of the processor VMware Player emulates no x64 systems are compatible with it. However, there is bound to be support for x64 OSes once VMware Player reaches its next release.

Comment by J_K9 — December 22, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Ok, thank you J_K9 for informing me about that and I will look forward to the next release then.

Comment by Jordan — December 22, 2005 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP 64 bit
hey, i’m going to make a spanish version and post it on my blog… is it ok?

Comment by Levi Sandoval — December 22, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
There are some tricks used into getting smb4k (smb/four/k) running. But basically you need to (re)scan your network and you may need to /manually/ add the appropriate network shares to the shares list after providing a suitable login.
1) Select your domain/workgroup from the list.
2) Click Rescan from the menu.
3) Select your computer.
4) Manually mount a shared folder (Shortcut: Ctrl + O).
5) Enter the share details, eg;
Share: //x3n1/c$
IP Address:
Workgroup:
6) Browse to /home/fuze/smb4k/x3n1/c$
7) Enjoy!
Once said and done, you now have read/write access to your windows directory (hey, now you can use amarok to listen to your fav. music!). This works for mandrake (mandriva) linux 2006 (which is what i usually boot…)

Kind regards

Comment by x3n1 — December 22, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
above comment you should also note that the appropriate path in 6) should be more like

~/smb4k/#computer#/c$

Cheers

Comment by x3n1 — December 22, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows 2000
While you guys are mainly using VMWare on Windows to run Linux, I find it’s actually better the other way: to run Windows in VMWare on a Linux host machine. The Linux machines on the network all run Samba, so they show up as shared systems in the Windows Network Places. Then I can just use normal Drag’n'Drop to move stuff around.

Also, with Linux being more stable overall, it doesn’t matter if the Windows virtual machine crashes, you can just reset/restart Windows in the VMWare window.

I use IE6 in Windows 2000 to access one or two Banks which are not browser-agnostic. These days that’s about all I need Win2000 for, the rest I can do with Linux itself.

Comment by Jack Strangio — December 22, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Linux
Excellent stuff!

I’ve been struggling with the need to rebuild 3 systems at home - 2 WinXP Pro and a Linspire system that keeps losing it’s audio and network connections. The Win systems have developed winrot in a bad way. The biggest problem is making sure I get all the email and user files and settings backed up before nuking the system. You’ve provided the tools to fix 99.9% of my problems -

Install opensuse 10.0 (or 10.1 soon) as base OS. It is one of the few distros that automajically recognizes all the hardware in my various systems.

Attach 100 GB USB 2.0 external storage.

Build a golden guest OS image of WinXP patches and updates required apps.
Configure apps to put user and configuration data on USB drive.
Make backup copy of golden image on the USB drive.

Rebuilding a system becomes a simple copy of a golden image, backups are trivial,
new apps can be tested w/o endangering the PC, zero-day exploits are easily rolled back, etc.

Linux running underneath gives me the base stability needed in the long term.

Is anyone working on a way to mount a .vmdk as a filesystem? That would solve a number of problems related to file transfer and maintaining the images.

Thanks!

Comment by AlanDavis — December 23, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on SuSE Linux
Howto test other OSes with VMPlayer

This tutorial is very very easy and has pictures! There was already one that was similar that dealt with VMWare’s VMPlayer, but this should be a bit easier to deal with. Take a look at how to support testing OSes…

Trackback by LUX.ET.UMBRA — December 24, 2005 #
Using MovableType 3.2
Jordan: Hopefully the next version will support it.
Levi: Of course you may!
x3n1: Thank you!
Jack: I do as well, and I have Linux installed on all my other PCs - it’s just that I use this laptop at school, which apparently “requires” Windows XP Pro (I bet you I can connect to it on Linux!). So, this way I can use Linux no matter what the Licence on their network states! Hehe…

Alan: Is anyone working on a way to mount a .vmdk as a filesystem? That would solve a number of problems related to file transfer and maintaining the images. - I’ll see if I can convince my friend to try it out, because he’s a great programmer. I’ll let you know if he can make it!

Comment by J_K9 — December 24, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
this is a great idea. i was wondering if i could play windows games inside the emulator.
not just any game but he high end games such as far cry. i tried however it seems that the video card emulated isn’t compatable. is there a way to create a compatable system (simular to my system with all the equiptment) where I could play games on emulated system. swap out when not wanted, back up and not have to worry that it will foul up other settings (which currently happens with the nvidea drivers and the dvd player i have.)

if the player won’t work that could I download the trial workstation and use that to create a machine and then emulate using that machine.?
i love the idea if it could work and i do have a powerful processor (no noticable problems with the emulation ) and i intend to get a gig or 2 more of ram to run comfortably. (actually i desired some more ram anyway)

I am thinking that if you only run the bare necessities on the emulated system( as well as the guest systemm) the emulation s would run faster. and far more securely. (like if you had a fresh system updated every time you started the computer.)

help from anybody would be appriciated.
sincerly rob

Comment by rblood — December 27, 2005 #
Using Mozilla 0.9.4.2 on Windows XP
Its not working for me , It says no bootable media found.
I tried it using both iso and a cd but didnt work.(The cd-rom button was pressed all the time).

Please help.

Comment by Vivek Kutal — December 29, 2005 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
[…] efore I upgraded my computer and I was still trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I had installed Ubuntu and Suse 10 think maybe my Computer had been effected by a Virus. I fell in love with Suse 10 instantly, especially the interface and ease of use. I never reaslised Linux could be so user friendly too. Anyway after upgrading my computer. I was planning to install suse again. when I happened to come across this really cool delicious bookmark link here teaching how to install a Linux Operating system inside a Windows Operating system. Using a Virtual Machine. […]

Pingback by The Bluesaze Blog » Blog Archive » Virtual Machine: Installing and running Suse 10 Linux inside Windows XP — December 31, 2005 #
Using WordPress 2.0
Superb. There’s now a hidden FreeBSD machine in my work desktop.

Comment by Tom — January 1, 2006 #
Using ELinks 0.10.5 on FreeBSD
rblood - Could you possibly change the video card used in the virtual machine? I’m not sure if it would work (because it isn’t the “native” graphics card), but you might be able to fool the OS into thinking it’s another graphics card.
Vivek - Are you sure you have linked to the ISO correctly? If that’s the case, then you may want to try the process again - or reinstalling VMware Player, because it really should work.

Tom - Excellent! And there was I thinking that I’d never see a post left by an ELinks browser

Comment by J_K9 — January 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
KCaz wrote (via email):

********

I’ve been messing around with this, as has the network admin at the college I work at. He came up with a solution for those people who are trying to boot from CD-ROM, but are getting “No bootable devices” errors. He and I were both getting the same message, and discovered that we were both running Daemon Tools. The VMWare Player was seeing the virtual CD drive as the default. He found that you could work around that by adding another CD drive to the VMWare config. Simply copy the 3 ide1:0 lines, and make another set for ide1:1. My config below:

ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”
ide1:1.present = “TRUE”
ide1:1.fileName = “auto detect”
ide1:1.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”

Now my VMWare Player boots from my physical CD drive! Kudos to Christian W. (the aforementioned net admin) for figuring this mystery out!

Of course, if you have multiple virtual drives in Daemon Tools (or other virtual drive programs), you will probably need extra entries for each of them. I’ll leave that up to someone else to discover.

Thanks for that KCaz! As for the problem with multiple drives, it should be the case of just adding more ide drives: ide1:2, ide1:3, and so on (or just turning off Daemon Tools! ;))

Comment by J_K9 — January 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Alan Davis wrote (via email):

Some updates : others may know this stuff already but I haven’t seen it here -

The vmware packages for linux include a utility called vmware-mount.pl. This allows a .vmdk file to be mounted under linux. It requires a binary, also included in the package, called vmware-loop.

I’ve figured out how to add a second disk to the WinXP guest OS vm :

use qemu-img to create the .vmdk file as described in a previous post here. I called it “user.vmdk”.

Add to OS.vmx :

ide0:1.present = “TRUE”
ide0:1.fileName = “user.vmdk”
ide0:1.redo = “”

The new disk was detected when WinXP booted under vmplayer.

I used diskpart to partition, create the default volume and assign the drive letter. The normal NTFS format operation succeeded and the disk was available as usual.

One drawback to using this method of creating VM’s is that the guest OS vmware-tools aren’t available to optimise disk and video.

Comment by J_K9 — January 4, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
[…] HOW TO: Run Other OSes On Your PC […]

Pingback by bowes » Blog Archive » random geekdom — January 6, 2006 #
Using WordPress MU
It seems that some people are having trouble commenting in this post - although I have tested it from Mozilla on Fedora Core 3, Firefox 1.5 on Ubuntu 5.10 and IE (doh!) on Windows XP and all three worked. Hmm… Anyway, here’s another email:

maverick wrote (via email):

Great tutorial!

I having a little bit of a networking issue with my VM and I was hoping someone could help me.

I want my VM to be able to access the VPN tunnel of the host PC instead of the default network which the VM is seeing. Let me explain, I use a Cisco VPN client to connect to my office LAN. My VM does not see the office LAN when the VPN connection is active. Unfortunately, I cannot install the vpn client on my guestOS.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks once again!

maverick - Why can you not install the VPN client on the guestOS? Is there a chance you could tell us what your guestOS is?

Comment by J_K9 — January 15, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
Persaram Batra wrote (via email):

Great post, very helpful. Thanks!

I got Red Hat 9.0 up and running under XP and love it. I had a few problems getting the virtual ethernet adapter to work though. For anyone who might be having this problem with RH9, you might want to check this out (scroll to the bottom):
http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/guestos_redhat90.html

Comment by J_K9 — January 17, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP
I was just wondering is it possible to install a virtual copy of windows xp on an xp host running vmware player?

Comment by Tom — January 21, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 7.0b on Windows XP
Hello,

I’d installed a virtual machine with OS Suse Enterprise Server 9. Network works fine with DHCP IPs that vmware-config.pl generates. I have problems when I want to conffigure static IPs for access to my virtual machine.

How I can change IPs address for virtual networks? I’d tried to change alls ips in configuration files but don’t work.

Thanks and regards,
Rocío

Comment by Rocío Alfonso — January 31, 2006 #
Using Konqueror 3.4 on Linux
Geat Tutorials, tempted me to try it out. LiveCDs (PClinuxOS, Mempis, Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux) worked very well. DSL was the fastest to load. Tried installing Vector Linux - not successful. Installation comes till fdisk & can not create partitions & throws up error. Tried Mepis, formatting Root Partion freezed at 3%, had to forcibly exit. Are there special linux editions for VMPlayer.

Cheers

Comment by NarahariBabu — February 14, 2006 #
Using Opera 8.51 on Windows 2000
Tom - Yes, it is.

Rocío - You should try to manually set the IP address for the VMware connection (quite possibly eth1, but you’ll have to check) on the real machine. That should do the trick…

NarahariBabu - Glad the live CD’s worked! As for the special editions, there are a few prebuilt ones made available by the distros’ communities and/or keen individuals, but most distributions should install on VMware Player using the method above. I’ve used VMware for 7 Linux distros so far, and it has only failed me on one.

Comment by J_K9 — February 15, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP
I made it!!!. Vector Linux Partition Tool