[ILUG] VMWare

[Badger O'Tool]

Hey B,

No worries on running VMWare Server on Fedora - I've been running on
FC5 for a while now with no problems.

I can't be certain about this, but I think that the distribution is pretty
much self-contained: It appears to ship with copies of most of the libraries
it needs (certain X libraries, glib, pam, etc). I think your best bet is to
just try it out in you chosen environment and see if it works.

The following will give you an idea of the processes that it's running on
my machine, along with their library dependencies:

/usr/bin/vmnet-bridge:
   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x00d46000)
   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b7e000)
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x002f1000)

/usr/bin/vmnet-netifup:
   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x005c7000)
   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b7e000)
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x002f1000)

/usr/sbin/vmware-serverd:
   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x004a3000)
   libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00cf5000)
   libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00cda000)
   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b7e000)
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x002f1000)
   libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x0030e000)
   libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00cb3000)
   libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x0565e000)

/usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd:
   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x004a7000)
   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b7e000)
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x002f1000)

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx:
   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x00705000)
   libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00cb3000)
   libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00cda000)
   libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00cf5000)
   libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00101000)
   libXtst.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXtst.so.6 (0x008f7000)
   libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00ded000)
   libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x0058c000)
   libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x050fc000)
   libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x002d1000)
   libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x002dc000)
   libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x00ce0000)
   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b7e000)
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x002f1000)
   libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x00d13000)
   libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00d0b000)

BTW, I'm using the VMWare's tar.gz packages (I vaguely recollect that
they had some RPMs available for download also).

If I didn't have X installed, I imagine that it would just fall back on
it's own copies under /usr/lib/vmware/lib/*.

As Frank just said, you don't need to have X running to manage the
Virtual Machines - there is a command line tool (vmware-cmd) that can
do everything you need. The GUI versions of the tools can be run from a
remote machine which is also handy.

- badge


Bernard-Joseph Roche wrote:
> Hi Guys and Gals (and those not sure),
>
> I am looking to use the free VMWare Server product on a couple of
> boxes. I would like to use Fedora as the host operating system (I
> know, I know it is not supported). I could use Ubuntu but want to stay
> with Fedora.
>
> Anyway, my question is for those in the know is what is the minimum
> (the bare minimum) please that I must install in order to support
> VMWare. I appreciate that if the hardware doesn't work in the host
> operating system it will naturally not be available in the virtual
> one.
>
> Do you need X? I know you need the kernel headers and gcc, but what
> else is essential?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> B.