Re: [PLUG] VMware Workstation 8 review

[Pat Barron <pat@lectroid.com>]

On 1/29/2012 4:33 PM, JP Vossen wrote:
> Pat, the last time I tried the free ESXi stuff, I was unable to get it 
> to do anything useful.  And I don't even see the "free" download 
> anymore, though I spent almost zero time looking.  I get ESXi 4 to 
> run, but actually doing anything useful with a VM seems to require a 
> whole bunch of *very* not-free stuff.
Admittedly, they do *not* make it easy to find...

http://www.vmware.com/go/get-free-esxi

VMs are managed using the administration client that's bundled with ESXi 
(which provides the console GUI also).
The only other tool I've needed to use to work with ESXi is VMware 
vSphere Converter:
https://www.vmware.com/go/getconverter

Which is also free...

It is a little picky about what hardware it runs on - I bet most 
desktop/server systems would be no problem, but I had to get ESXi 
running on a Lenovo Thinkpad W520 a few months ago and that was a bit of 
an adventure...
I still also run VMware Server 2.0 for some stuff, though yeah, getting 
it to build on a modern Fedora release was also a bit of an adventure.
VMware Workstation may be the right tool for what you're doing, and 
admittedly ESXi takes over the entire machine (and you also need to 
manage it from a separate machine).  But ESXi is a nice option for lots 
of tasks, it's served my needs pretty well... ;-)
--Pat.
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