Installing vmware workstation under 6.0.1 - tips?

[Capricorny]

So far, everything I have tried to do with 6.0.1 has worked fairly well, but the next step may be more troublesome: I will install vmware workstation and run Window$ versions, the virtual machines preferably being located on an external harddisk. (ext3-partition.)

I have run vmware under several RedHat and Mandriva versions, but never on a Debian-based system. Is there something to watch out for?
If this goes well, I will try to include it in a remastered version (vmware workstation only for private use, of course.). But a pendrive with vmware player might perhaps be given away, too?

[Harry Kuhman]

... (vmware workstation only for private use, of course.). But a pendrive with vmware player might perhaps be given away, too?

The last time that I looked, VMware workstation was a non-free product from VMware. This is not a warez site, and links offering Knoppix (or any other Live CD) that include it will not be hosted here. A wink, nod and smiley face saying "this is only for private use" does not legitimize piracy. Even the free VMware player is free from VMware, but the terms of use that give you free use of their product do not allow you to include it in other packages and redistribute it. So any such packages will not be hosted or linked to here.

Of course, we are free to discuss how to install VMware player, or legitimate copies of VMware workstation, into pendrive Knoppix or even remastered Knoppix CDs or DVDs.

[Capricorny]

... (vmware workstation only for private use, of course.). But a pendrive with vmware player might perhaps be given away, too?

The last time that I looked, VMware workstation was a non-free product from VMware. This is not a warez site, and links offering Knoppix (or any other Live CD) that include it will not be hosted here. A wink, nod and smiley face saying "this is only for private use" does not legitimize piracy. Even the free VMware player is free from VMware, but the terms of use that give you free use of their product do not allow you to include it in other packages and redistribute it. So any such packages will not be hosted or linked to here.

Of course, we are free to discuss how to install VMware player, or legitimate copies of VMware workstation, into pendrive Knoppix or even remastered Knoppix CDs or DVDs.

I expressed myself in a way that may be misunderstood when I wrote "private use" - what I meant, and is bore out by the next sentence, was that it would not be for redistribution.

Actually, with the ease we can install packages and programs under 6.0.1, there is not really any great need to incorporate VMware into a remastered image. OTOH, the installed Workstation package has grown so big now, that I want to put it into the compressed image for size reasons.

I still don't know about the requirements for the latest VMware release - an attempt at rpm install under Mandriva 2009.1 failed, and I was not given the reason why. I think this may be a good place to discuss such install requirements and problems, and a remastered image with all the necessary supporting packages properly installed would surely be helpful. That would not infringe on any VMware copyrights.

Being av VMware customer for more than 9 years, I know well about Workstation restrictions, and it is interesting to note that they choose to restrict redistribution of VMware Player too. Maybe it's time to look into free alternatives, and bundle them...?

[Harry Kuhman]

Well, there are free alternatives. Actually I thought one was in 5.3.1 but I'm likely wrong about that. Yes, it would be nice to see Knoppix include a free virtual environment. As far as installing player or workstation in a Knoppix system, and maybe even remastering after that, it perhaps can be done. My understanding is that there is a version for Debian, so if it doesn't install to Knoppix I would expect that the issue would be Knoppix's mixed versions origin, known to break a lot of things when an install is attempted.

It would be nice to know how to get one of the VMware products working under Knoppix. We just need to be sure we don't cross the line with VMware code. Perhaps someone could even come up with an "installer" that understands the issues and can take a legal copy of VMware player and install it in Knoppix. While Knoppix with VMware player can legally be redistributed, a future version of Knoppix could have a script that is just one step away from having VMware under knoppix.

[Capricorny]

Of course we should also work with the free alternatives. I am personally, however, quite pragmatic about free/non-free as long as the basic free infrastructure is in place, and the non-free software lives in rather small and well-defined niches, with free alternatives under development. Running a Windows version under Linux does in itself require a license, and for me, there is not a big issue to pay another license for what is, essentially, transferring Windows to a virtual state (VMware Player is free of charge). From an open software viewpoint, I think it is strategically quite important to be able to turn the M$ "embrace and extend" tactics around, running Windows virtually under Linux whenever we need it.

It turned out that VMware Workstation 6.5.2, bundle, installed smoothly under 6.0.1 with a 4GB persistent image. No problems at all, and a W2K virtual machine installed under Workstation 6.0 powered up flawlessly, after having been stored away for more than a year. So I guess it will be possible to include this in a remastered version, but maybe it is not that important, if other packages are compressed. There is no way to have room for the virtual machines on the images, and I set up a big ext3-partition, /store, on the harddisk, where I put the virtual machines. (10GB virtual machine for W2K) For backup, I create compressed tarballs, and these may fit on a DVD.

I haven't tried to install WinXP yet, but WInXP and most Vista variants are known to run smoothly in Workstation, so there should be no big problems with it.
One of the real nice things, is to run W2K on an external 1920x1200 display (right now from a laptop with 1400x1050 display and Intel 855-integrated chip), without having to think about drivers at all! Linux/Knoppix presents a simple world for the Windows versions and programs to run in.

[Capricorny]

The compressed tarball of the VM is about 3 GB, with OpenOffice, Java 2EE SDK, Mono 2.4, Office 2003, R etc installed. I have not tried to install the latest SP, as Windows then sets aside lots of voluminous files for backup. About 2GB of the 4GB Knoppix image file is in use now. A 16 GB stick with a 6GB FAT32 and a 10 GB ext3 partition holds Knoppix and a few compressed virtual machines, in addition to some software packs.

To me, it seems that the more lightweight LXDE manager really helps, too. I'm using a 4 1/2 yr old Inspiron 510m w/2GB RAM and a 250 GB ATA drive, and things could have been swifter, but I had expected Win XP to run much more slowly in this setup. For me. there isn't really any great need for running on a faster machine. And Knoppix 6.0.1 runs the old Intel wireless card in the machine flawlessly!

I also use a cheap and slow Kingston DataTraveler pendrive, but in practical use, it's fast enough for me. All repeated volume reading and writing happens to and from the harddisk.

[Capricorny]

I have tried moving the vm and Knoppix around, and it works well. But so far, I have to run the vmware init script manually:

/etc/init.d/vmware start

This script will start all services needed and load the correct kernel modules (vmmon, vmnet etc).