Hi friends,
I may sound like a dumbo. But seems like i am a n00b all the time. But someone please tell me what is VMware and how does it work...
Regards.

I know the VMware web page is difficult for a newbie. I didn't understand anything at a first glance. I found more useful to start from the wikipedia description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware

thnx to colucix. well I am stuck at one thing:
Does that mean I have to create another "Vmware image" (beg your pardon if the term is wrong. ) for another OS?
Regards

Yes. VMware player can "play" any virtual machine created by VMware server or VMware workstation or by some free software as Qemu. With VMplayer you will need a prebuilt disk image (namely Virtual Disk) and the installation media of the OS you want to run.

Kinda, Sorta.

You can use VMWare Player to create Virtual Machines, but you will need to use a program called qemu to create a vmdk file (Virtual disk) to install the OS to. And be able to read and use notepad.

Basic How-To: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/11/0...tallation.html

It is pretty simple once you have done it a couple times. I run WinXPPro mainly on my laptop, but I have installed Ubuntu, Slackware, and Debian Stable/Testing Virtual Machines on it using this method. The only issue you may run into is installing VMWare tools on the Virtual machines.

Not sure about that. Anyways, potential contributors are missing information on
a) where you are now (environment, experience, etc.)
b) what you've already tried
c) what's the limits you reached, and
d) what's your final goal, to make this question be "solved".

This, IMHO opinion, applies to ANY support question.

I.e., you can download pre-built appliances from VMWare, on the other hand, you can also create empty Virtual Machines (i.e., http://www.easyvmx.com, into which you can install almost anything.

Thanks

Hi, cyberbuff -

Very simply, VMWare lets you set up and run an entire PC (the operating system, all your programs, disks, peripherals, RAM, CPU - everything!) as a "virtual PC" instead of having to buy a new "real, physical PC".

In other words, I could install an entire Windows system ... and run it as a virtual PC under Linux. Or I could have an entire lab consisting of multiple virtual PCs, running any combination of Linux, Windows, and even DOS, all networked together in a virtual LAN, all running on a single PC. All you need is a copy of VMWare - and lots of "real" disk, and lots of "real" RAM.

VMWare lets you experiment with different configurations, different systems.

1. VMWare Player is completely free - but you can't create your own, new VMWare "images".

2. VMWare Workstation is very reasonably priced (under $200 USD): it lets you create new VMWare images, it lets you "clone" existing images, and it lets you take "VMWare snapshots" so that you can instantly go back to any "known good image" - regardless of how badly you trash an existing image.

VMWare is a very, very cool and useful thing to have for:

1. Development labs
2. Testing
3. Training
4. Product demos
etc etc

'Hope that helps .. PSM

Paulsm4, just one correction. If you want to install a guest OS on a Linux host, you need Vmware server and some associated packages. But you don't have to pay anything for that. I am running W2k on my Linux box, and I got all the vmware stuff legal & free.

Vmware was the only fully satisfactory solution for running windows apps which were incompatible with anything else like Whine or CXOffice.

jlinkels

thanks to all of you for your replies...well, I am just trying new distros. So I want to just "try" them (I mean I dont wanna install them) In order to just try them which one should I use--VMware Player or Srver? (I am a bit messed up in these two.)

lol. I am trying new distros. I have tried Freespire, DSL, Kubuntu, freeBSD, Zenwalk, Sabayon, and of course Ubuntu, which I am currently running with...
My limits? I know nothing kernel and all that development stuff. Just a n00b.
Goal? Always learning.
Thanks and regards.

I would use Server for that, since you want to create your own images (even temporarily). Player would be a good choice if you were sure there was already an existing VMware image for every distro you wanted to try.

how does networking work on a VMWare box? specifically, say i have VMWare desktop with two linux images, can they share the same ip address? What if both are running apache, how would they resolove?

It seems like there might be some way to "split" a single ip address to different images (like NAT'ting to the different images). Is this possible?

thanks

There are different options for networking. NATting is one option. The other option is that the virtual machine gets its own IP. There must be a third one but I don't recall that one. Why not take a look at the documentation at vmware.com?

I use a separate IP for both my real machine and my virtual machine. Both get a different IP address assigned from the DHCP server.

This is the weirdest thing I ever saw: the virtual NIC has a DIFFERENT MAC address from the real NIC. And every time you install another VM, it will get a different MAC address assigned! This is especially funny if you are connected to a Cisco router enforcing port security on MAC address.

So it seems to me that all virtual machines and your real machine are totally independent and different computers as seen from the outside.

jlinkels

thank you all.

hi friends, I downloaded Vmware Server. Now when I want to create a virtual machine it asks to partition. Is the partition "real"? I mean, say, if I uninstall VMware server will the partition still be there?
regards.