Re: [PLUG] Thoughts on VMWare...

[Jeff Dean <jdean@ieee.org>]

I'm running VMware 2.0 on a dual PII/333 system with 196MB and a SCSI 9GB
10,000RPM disk running Linux 2.2, XFree 3.3, and KDE.  I do daily work in a
Win98 2nd ed. virtual machine and also use a WinNT4 virtual machine from
time to time.  Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the result.  I don't
need performance on the Windows side, so I can run a couple SETI@home
processes (one for each processor) as I work if I renice VMware to a higher
priority.

I installed Win98 using VMware 1.1 with no problems.  The Win98 install was
no different than it is on physical hardware.  I then upgraded to VMware
2.0 (it was free) which was also problem free.  After that, I applied the
Win98 2nd ed. update to my virtual machine.  This was a real mess.  It
crashed a frequently, and the virtual machine had to be rebooted manually a
bunch of times.  I had about given up and was preparing to restore the old
pre-2ndEd virtual machine disk image when, after a final VM boot, it
worked.  I never found out what was wrong (Windows won't tell, of course)
but it's been fine since.

I'm using the VMware special NIC and video drivers in Win98 with no
problems.  Despite the slowdown I save all my work on the Linux side via
Samba, to avoid having anything valuable wrapped into the VM disk image
should something go wrong (it hasn't yet).

A few wierdnesses:
- If you boot another kernel image, you'll need to rerun the VMware
configuration script before VMware will run again.  This may frustrate
kernel developers, but I'm sure they've found the magic way to avoid the
problem.
- I've had mixed success with the new 2.0 suspend feature.  It is best and
fastest if I suspend the VM outright, but about 1 time in 10 it won't come
back to life, and Win98 goes through scandisk.  However, if I use the
"features of the guest OS" to suspend (i.e., use Win98 suspend features)
it's very slow and even more unstable.  If you keep a backup of the disk
image and store your Windows data elsewhere, you're probably safe with the
first option.
- Cut and paste between X and the VM is great, although I find that when
using the automatic mousegrabbing thing VMware gives you, if I enter the VM
with the mouse cursor from anywhere other than the titlebar, pasting in
Windows won't work.  Therefore, if I select some text in X I have to circle
the mouse around to the top of the VM and descend into the Windows app
before pasting succeeds.
- Unfortunately, Win98 hangs around consuming the system even when it's
idle, so if I'm going to leave the system with the VM running I renice the
VM so it doesn't hog CPU time.

I've had no problems in areas you'd expect them, like the virtual network
implementation, LAN browsing, and Samba interoperability.  I've also had
good luck with VMware support staff, with two calls answered on the first
try, if a bit slowly.

My hat's off to VMware for a great product.

jd

At 08:59 PM 7/16/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Anybody out there running VMWare?  I'm getting a Win2K machine this week
>with ample horsepower and storage to run multiple OS' (multiple Linux
>distibutions and Win98) in VM sessions (or so I think).
>Does anybody have any perls (sic) of wisdom on using this product?
>Charles


Jeff Dean
jdean@ieee.org

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