I'm trying to install Slackware 12 on VMware ESX Server v3.02, and I can't seem to get Slackware to detect my virtual drive... After a bit of searching, I stumbled onto this:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...light=esx+3.02

This fellow is literally right where I'm at, but the posting was mysteriously cut short? Anybody have any suggestions/ideas? It really just appears to be a driver problem, but i'm pretty new to this and am uncertain where to insert a hardware driver into the install process, as all other linux distros I've tried have booted right up...

But then again, I switched to Slackware to learn linux, not just use it, right?

I had the same problem when I attempted to install Slackware 12 on VMware server.

The only way I got it to work was by defining the disk devices as IDE and not SCSI (which is the default)

I have Slackware 12 running as a guest on VMWare Server which is build on a Slackware 12 host. My guest is running with the HD as SCSI and I am using the BusLogic driver. All is well but I did have to make some changes to deal with clock drift on the guests.

Did either of you happen to get VMware Tools installed properly? I'm having a really hard time with that, even in VMware Server (the free utility)...

VMWare Tools is installed and running on all my Slack11 & Slack 12 guests. The key for me was figuring out the adjustments to make for the initrd directories during installation.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I was trying to research/test your suggestion, but unfortunately had no luck whatsoever... As far as I was able to determine, initrd is a RAM function, so I'm unclear as to how I should manipulate any sort of directory to assist with the vmwaretools install? The part where i'm getting hung up, and I can't find this error anywhere via Google of Yahoo, is:

Unable to create symbolic link "/etc/pam.d/vmware-guestd" pointing to file "/usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/pam.d/vmware-guestd".

Execution aborted.



It seems to me that creating a symbolic link is a simple task for root, especially when it's embedded into a script?

It may be that you need to try:

if the Link is a directory or not. That is what the 'd' option is. Also, the 's' creates symbolic links.

However, the error is probably innate to the command, because in the manual page it says that the 'd' option (if symlinking directories) may fail even for root user, and the 'f' option forces the symlink.

Be careful either way; if there is a hard link, then the file must be there. If you want to, you can use symbolic (soft) to point, but that means the file pointed to does not need be there.

try this, as this is what i did and see if it works mkdir /etc/pam.d

I installed pam compliments on linuxpackages.net:
http://www.linuxpackages.net/download.php?id=11397

-JJ

I just want to thank you all because of your great support. I just want to make a summarizationi based on what I learnt and may be it can help some one else.

My computer configuration:
Laptop Dell Latitude D400
Linux Slackware version 10.2, kernel 2.4.31
Optical Mouse is connected through USB

To install Slackware on Vmware which was installed on WindowsXP (as I did), I did the following steps:
I>================================================================
1. create a virtual machine with hdd type is IDE
2. just install slackware from cd or iso files
3. if you have some problem with boot up after installation, you can bootup with Slackware CD 1. When the prompt "boot:" is displayed, you enter:
bare.i root=/dev/hda1 noinitrd ro
(assume that you had installed slackware on /dev/hda1 like me)

II>===============================================================
4. Installed vmware tools. You should create some new directories in order to install vmware-tools successful:
#mkdir /etc/init.d
#cd /etc/init.d
#for i in {0,1,2,3,4,5,6}; do mkdir rc$i.d; done

5. Run the command that install the vmware-tools as usual
./vmware-install.pl
6. setup the init script
#cp /etc/init.d/vmware-tools /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware-tools
(if you use previous version of vmware less than ver6.0 may be the command parameter should be changed to /etc/init.d/vmware /etc...)
#chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware-tools
7. use vi command to edit file: /etc/rc.d/rc.local
#begin vmware-tools script
if [-x /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware ]; then
/etc/rc.d/rc.vmware-tools start
fi
#end vmware-tools script
8.#mkdir /etc/pam.d

III>===============================================================
1. configure the mouse and screen resolution, you can use in combination 2 commands:
#xorgsetup
and
#xorgconfig

2. may be you also need to run the following commands:
ln -s /dev/psaus /dev/mouse

3. I had choosen mouse protocol number 7

Wow I didn't expect this thread to last so long - thanks for everybody's input!

On the other side of this coin, I was wondering if anyone could tell me what options to select if I want a machine to be dedicated solely to running VMware Server? Now that Slack 12.1 is out, I think I'm going to try and create a dedicated machine for running these VMs to get a feel for how it compares to ESX in terms of cost/performance, and in order to do that accurately I feel as though I would need a minimal base install...