On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 09:20:36AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote: [snip useful stuff, thanks!]
I definitely feel that it's very poorly explained on the VM site, and that 'server' isn't really a good name for VM Server.
I agree on the first but not the second: it really does operate as a server. I perhaps didn't describe it very well.
I hadn't realised the relationship between VM Server and VM workstation, given these two then 'server' does make sense. The odd thing (that I found confusing anyway) is that VM Server is free whereas VM Worksation costs $189.
By the way VM Server doesn't require VM Workstation does it? VM Server is a complete standalone product?
How difficult is it to create VM system images of 'non supported' operating systems?Generally no problem. You have a virtual machine, you an do what you like with it. The issue is drivers. A basic VM tends to have hardware that is well supported by all distros these days, but ultimately if your virtual ethernet card has no driver for your distro then you're stuck. The hardware it emulates should be on the site somewhere but I'll look it up if you're stuff (I'm rushing this emai as I should be somewhere else right now!)
Presumably then one just chooses well supported hardware for one's virtual machine - I assume it doesn't have to match the actual hardware on the host machine does it?
I would be *very* surprised if you had any problems getting slackware running. Indeed, google for "vmware slackware appliance" and you'll find some Slackware-based virtual machines (you'd probably want to roll your own though).
OK, thanks.
VMWare mean "supported" in the sense of "it may well work but our support department can't help if it doesn't". Since the free product presumably isn't "supported" in that sense anyway it makes little difference.
Yes, that's what I assumed it meant in this context, slightly different from the situation with VM Server where the installation actually interacts with the OS it's being installed on.
By emulating a full PC with a full set of hardware, anythingwhich has drivers for that hardware should just work. Just remember its the emulated hardware that matters, not your own.
Presumably there must be *some* correlation between the emulated hardware and the host PC hardware. I.e. you can't emulate an NIC unless the underlying hardware actually has a network connection of some sort (or at least the emulated NIC won't work unless you have an actual network connection).
Thanks for all the excellent and helpful feedback on this by the way, it's very useful.