Hey,

Got a question... is there any distro that comes with virtualization software? When I was installing FC6, it showed that it had some packages for virtualization, it installed without any problems but then when it came to the point where it shows the login screen, it was just a black screen. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the use of the word virtualization here. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Brandon

yeah you must be... FC6 includes XEN, which is a virtualisation architecture. i've no idea why you'd think a black screen would say anythign about a systems capabilites in virtualiztion though... unless you think virtualization doesn't work with systems with black screens... if you've got it installed, you're best checking a set of docs like this http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraXenQuickstartFC5 which should get you going in the right direction.

The *buntus(Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edbuntu etc) have vmware-player. Then you have to go to vmware.com and download a virtual appliance. Products>Free Virtualisation Products>Virtual Aappliances>(Click) Operating Systems. Could it be that FC6 has the vmware-player and appears black because you don't have the virtual appliance. One word of caution: If you intend to create Windows XP as a virual appliance you'll need virtual-server instead. You can have EITHER virtual-player OR virtal-server, but not both together. Downloadind a virual appliance can take a L-O-N-G time (about 3 hours DSL)

Sorry Acid, I left out a key piece of info... when I installed the virtualization software, which I believe was Xen, I would get a black screen. When it was NOT installed, everything was fine. So, in a sense, virtualization software doesn't work with systems with black screens. lol. It sat for a LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG time on a process called Xend during the initialization screen. After about two minutes, the Xend was a go, but then it went to the black screen when it should've gone to the login screen. Maybe it has something to do with what arochester said.

Thanks,

Brandon

ok, well Xend is the Xen daemon, so you do have it installed, quite why it took so long to start when you obviously have no existing xen servers on it i couldn't guess. you should check your Xen log files, which live in /var/lgo/xen/ as for a black screen, is that a normal console login screen? are there virtual terminals open on other ttys? try Ctrl+Alt+F2 to check. you can always do an interactive startup and not load Xend inparticular if you so wish.

and don't bother with vmware-player. waste of time, if you want vmware ,use vmware-server.

Acid,

The black screen is not a normal console login. Normally it would be the blue DNA screen for FC6. That's the default to my knowledge. I was not aware of the ctrl+alt+f2 command. I would have to reinstall FC6 to find out. i was never able to check out the log files due to not being able to get into the GUI. I never tried to view them through the console because i did not know where they were.

Thanks,

Brandon

I had a few weird problems with XEN on SuSE 10.2 & SLED as well. Basically lot's of config & reading manuals (instead of skiing) time, and no workie...

I ended up spending $50.00 on Parallels (www.parallels.com) and it worked imediately and I now run Wiun XP Pro with IIS & SQL Serv all day long with NO problems. I develop in SuSE and test my stuff Via local I.P address in the Win VM to match my work deployment environment.

Best 50.00 I spent in a long time ;-)

I personally use VMware Server. I'd rather have workstation, but I don't want to pay $200 and I'm not a software pirate.

nobody else likes qemu?

Yes qemu is great, I used it recently again to access my ext3 files under windows.