cl@isbd.net wrote:
I'm not quite clear on the difference between VM Player and VM Server. If I run on a 'real' Linux box can both allow me to have virtual Linux and Win2k machines running? If they can both do this what is the actual difference? What is "creating a new VM" if it's not setting up a Win2k or Linux virtual machine?
Wayne has already answered the bit about Player.
vmware-server is very different. If I describe how I use it maybe it'll make sense...
I have a headless Ubuntu-based server running vmware-server buried deep in my "server room" (aka broom cupboard). It runs several virtual machines, one of which (FC5 based) is in constant use, with others (like a 2003 server) are there for when I need them, and are either paused or shutdown the rest of the time.
Making changes to a VM (or creating a new one) means firing up the console software on my desktop (either Linux or Windows based), and connecting to the server. The front end you get is very much like the normal VMWare workstation product, its just decoupled from the server part. If you want to insert a CD to the VM, that CD can go into your desktop PC's drive or the server's drive, for example. So the way it handles hardware is a little different from the way Workstation does things.
Of-course it's quite possible to run the console on the same machine as the server, and I would guess that the server does have USB support (maybe even allowing it to be mapped to the console? I can't remember off the top of my head, but it would be useful for stuff like thumb drives), but I've never tried it.
Installing server is also not as easy as installing the console - that's the main reason I have it on Ubuntu server (found a good howto). That said I started with one of the early betas, its probably easier/better documented now.
I'd probably suggest avoiding server unless you already have some familiarity with VMWare, but if you know your way around workstation then vmware-server really is an excellent product. Sure it would be nice if it free in more ways than one, which is why I suggested Xen as an alternative; I'd like to get that working myself but when I set this up Xen3 was just about to be released, and there was very little documentation for getting it working (I did try briefly but didn't have sufficient time to get it working). Familiarity with VMWare on the desktop made it a lot easier to set up vmware-server than Xen. That said I would *love* to see a Xen install in action and then have another go at an installation.
PS: Regarding parallel ports; Wayne suggested that the support wasn't great, but in my experience parallel and serial ports work fine. I haven't tried a scanner on them, but I have tried hardware protection keys ("dongles") on them and found that they work flawlessly, which I was surprised by.
A quick word on licensing: to meet the terms of MS' licence you'll require a separate licence for each MS-based VM, and OEM licences are non-transferable between machines. Suddenly having an almost limitless supply of (virtual) PCs makes you realise how good it is working with FOSS! If MS (and others) were actually able to properly enforce their licences, FOSS would have a *much* larger market share.