[PLUG] VMWare question: How to start vmware guests automatically

[alan]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, David Mandel wrote:

> A couple comments:
>
> (1)  Actually, VMWare Server is free - free as in no cost - not free
> as in freedom.
>     See: http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html for 
> details.
>
> (2)  VMWare workstation costs money.
>     I own a copy or two of VMWare workstation 5.x
>     I should try VMWare workstation 6.0 beta.  I have not.

I have.  It is SLOW.  The debugging information in the code slows it down 
to a crawl.  It is useful only if you need to see if something will work. 
It is not good for casual use.

> (3)  VMWare workstation will do a lot that VMWare Server won't do.
>     Thus, I'm using VMWare workstation.
>     Unfortunately, the documentation says you can NOT run workstation
>     and server on the same computer, and the command line interface
>     for VMWare Workstation stinks.  (Or maybe I don't understand
>     it's features.)

What do you find useful that Workstation does that server does not?

> (4)  Mostly, I use VMWare to run Linux under Linux
>     I haven't quite figured networking out for Xen yet.
>     Xen seems to work great, but there doesn't seem to be an easy
>     strait forward way of creating Xen virtual machines.
>     Eventually, I intend to use VMWare to create Xen virtual
>     machines as needed and use Xen to run these.
>     In the mean time, I'm using VMWare on one machine for everything
>     and that is why I would like my VMWare guests to start automatically
>     on boot.

I have not done Xen yet.  I had some bad problems with it in 64 bit a 
while back.  I have not gone back to see if they have been fixed or not.

I use VMWare for two things right now.

I run FC6 under VMWare on WinXP so I don't have to use XP for most things.

I run Win2k under it for one piece of software that is Windows only and I 
did not have the time to make work under Wine.  (i.e I wanted to get my 
taxes done and over with.)

If I can find a good reason for getting Workstation, I plan on getting it. 
VMWare has been very useful to me so far.

-- 
"Invoking the supernatural can explain anything, and hence explains nothing."
                   - University of Utah bioengineering professor Gregory Clark