Vmware: was Lightzone

[Collins Richey]

On Saturday 26 May 2007, Ken Moffat wrote:
> Bruce Marshall wrote:
> > I've used VMware Workstation for many years.
>
> I take this as an endorsement of vmware?
I would agree with that.    It has always worked quite well but I haven't done
anything really special with it....

---

I've only recently had any exposure to Vmware, but now we're using it
at work. The engineers we support have to have Linux (for software
development) and Windows (for Outlook and the usual Oracle crapware
and Internet Exploder) at their desks.

[An aside: Oracle is a perfectly good database, but every company I've
worked for has crapware for the gui interface to the database that
everyone has to use for internal stuff. It appears to have been
designed by a fifth grader after too much Ovaltine.]

We've just put up the first half-dozen workstations with Linux,
Vmplayer, and WinXP. Since we don't have install media for the
"virusware", we used the excellent converter program supplied by
Vmware to create a playable image of WinXP. In our case that's 6G !!
of "virusware" which adds a little time to the kickstart run as you
can imagine. You need a little extra memory and an extra NIC in the
box, but it runs like a champ. We restrict the WinXP VM to 384M which
is plenty for the few windows aps that we actually need. All our new
desktop boxes are dual core with 2M memory, so it's a great fit.

The only problem with Vmware (or any virtual solution) is that you're
fairly restricted in the kernels that are supported. Fortunately the
standard RHEL4-U4 kernel is a fit.

[Another aside: We wanted to move up to an RH errata kernel to fix a
few exposures, but RH didn't bother to test the kernel with latest
hardware. Our boxes (HP AMD) have sata DVD readers, and the errata
kernel goes nuts in that environment - continuously looping error
messages.]

As we roll out new worksttions, we will save a bundle - only one box
per desk and no KVM setup (always unreliable). NIC cards are dirt
cheap. Now if the company would just order boxes with decent nVidia
cards instead of the Other Brand!

I've got the new setup on my ow work desktop machine (a single
processor AMD with 2M), and it hauls ass.

Now that I've got the proof of concept, I need to get serious about
building a Vmware station for my wife.

Another advantage of Vmware. If you quit out of vmplayer, t does the
equivalent of a suspend for the WinXP VM, so you don't need a full
reboot next time you startup. Even a full boot runs just as fast or
faster than on real hardware.

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.