VMware Player 3.1.2 on Fedora 14 Beta

Those that have followed my blog may be aware of issues I have (had) with VMware Server, even to an extend that I decided to convert my virtual machines from VMware Server to VirtualBox. If you like to read up about this conversion, you can have a look at this blog post I did on the conversion.

One of the main reasons I used VMware Server and not VMware Player was the ability to create virtual machines. However, when it was pointed out to me that the current release of VMware Player also can create virtual machines I decided to give it a go. This resulted in this blog post in which I describe how I installed it on Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat).

Since the installation went without any issues I was also curious how the installation would go on Fedora 14 Beta that I also recently have installed on my desktop.

Since Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10 both reside on the same desktop, I did not have to download the file but I could just copy it over. In one go I also copied over the Puppy Linux iso file that I used to test it on Ubuntu. Acting as root I ran the installation file:
$ sudo ./VMware-Player-3.1.2-301548.i386.bundle
Extracting VMware Installer...done.
And the VMware Player Installer started …

The installer completed without any issues, so I started the application and expected the window to appear that certain items had to be compiled before VMware Player could start, but got the following message:

Ooops, my bad. Had forgotten to install some required packages. So from the terminal I installed these:
sudo yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc
Restarted VMware Player and … as expected … the window popped up that certain items had to be compiled before VMware Player could run. Nothing strange, until …

Hmmm … checked the log file and the final line stated:
Oct 11 19:49:22.475: app-3077519040| Failed to compile module vmmon!
This sounded exactly like the issue that was described in Bart’s comment when he tried to install VMware Player on Ubuntu.
Since it indeed seemed to be the same issue I also tried the solution that he described. From a terminal I ran the following commands as root:
# cd /tmp
# wget http://www.sputnick-area.net/scripts/vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
# chmod +x vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
# ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash

# vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Since the feedback in the terminal completed with
Starting VMware services:
VMware USB Arbitrator [ OK ]
Virtual machine monitor [ OK ]
Virtual machine communication interface [ OK ]
VM communication interface socket family [ OK ]
Blocking file system [ OK ]
Virtual ethernet [ OK ]
Shared Memory Available [ OK ]
all seemed to be fine and indeed … VMware Player now started without any issues.

Quickly created a new virtual machine with the Puppy Linux iso “attached” to the CD-Rom and booted. This time making sure I chose not to install the VMware Tools since this installation hung when I ran a LiveCD last time.
Puppy Linux  came up nicely and all, as far as I could tell, worked OOTB.

Bottom line: VMware Player 3.1.2 works fine in Fedora 14 although I have to admit that I was lucky that Bart encountered an issue during the installation on Ubuntu. Otherwise I would have needed to search for a workaround for the compilation problem with vmmon.

Fedora 14 (Laughlin) Beta in VMware Player 3.1.2

If you are not a first time visitor you may know that I run both Ubuntu and Fedora as distributions of my choice. Although I started out with Ubuntu and I still have a slight preference for it, Fedora has been catching up more and more.

Fedora 13 has had a partition of its own since it came out and when I heard about Fedora 14 I just had to try it. Unfortunately I never got the Alpha release working on my desktop so when I read the tweet about Fedora 14 Beta being available I was curious whether this release would work. So I obtained the live media from the download page and decided to try this out in VMware Player of which I wrote a blog post earlier.

I created the virtual machine using the default settings (except the disk size) and powered it up. It was good to see that at least the automatic login of the live session appeared … this was a step forward from the Alpha release.

Fedora 14 Beta - Login

And even better … the desktop appeared!

I “played” around a little with the live version and since everything seemed to work decided to install it onto the virtual machine. The installation, choose all default settings except the location (don’t reside in Boston), completed without a glitch. Rebooted as indicated and also the installed version worked nicely.

I did install some additional packages like kernel-headers, kernel-devel and gcc in order to install the VMware Tools. Plus gconf-editor to get rid of the icons on my desktop.

Since it was mentioned that VMware Player also could handle 3D like VirtualBox I also added compiz-fusion. Unfortunately that I did not get working, well at least not until now. It keeps indicating that the hardware does not support 3D, which I am sure it does since I have compiz running on the host OS. But not too bothered about that since after all … it is just eye-candy (or is it?).

So some technicalities … the virtual machine is allowed to use 1 processor on my dual core laptop and 1024Mb of the available 2Gb memory. The performance is, as expected, good and the memory it uses after startup is very acceptable (around 300Mb) which means I can also run it on my desktop that only has 512Mb.

The Beta release makes use of the 2.6.35 kernel, has Gnome 2.32.0 as a desktop (according the system monitor) and Firefox 3.6.10 as a default browser.

Unlike Ubuntu it does not come with an office suite installed but that can easily be added. It also uses Shotwell Photo Manager for viewing images and it has Pino as default twitter/identi.ca client. For the rest, most common “tools” and software come along with the installation.

Although I have had only very little time to “play” around with this release it seems very promising. Next step to do is to install it in a separate partition on my desktop and see how it behaves on a “low end” machine. Furthermore pretty curious whether it will work with the Intel graphics driver that is installed on my desktop. So most likely and if time permits … more info will follow later.

VMware Player 3.1.1 on Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

A recent comment by DC on my blog post VMware Server 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) had made me curious. The comment made was:

FYI the current VMware Player now allows creation of VMs, so that allowed me to change from VMware Server to Player. Player also supports 3D Graphics acceleration on the host and other nifty features.

Existing VMs created in Server can be enabled to use the additional Player features by manually editing the virtualHW.version in the .vmx file (virtualHW.version = “7″).

Since I was not aware of the features indicated in the comment I decided to give VMware Player a try on my Ubuntu Maverick installation on my desktop and so I downloaded the latest release of VMware Player. Once the file is downloaded it has to be made executable. I do this from a terminal with the following command:
$ chmod +x VMware-Player-3.1.1-282343.i386.bundle
Next, acting as root, I executed the file:
$ sudo ./VMware-Player-3.1.1-282343.i386.bundle
This will start the VMware Player Installer. After answering the questions whether I want to immediately check for updates and whether I want to support the development, the actual installation starts.

On my desktop the installation completed without any issues, so now I could start trying the VMware Player.

When started for the first time you are requested to accept the EULA. Next a window popped up indicating the following:

Before you can run VMware, several modules must be compiled and loaded into the running kernel.

I choose to “Install” and after entering my sudo password the VMware Kernel Module Updater appeared.

Once this was completed VMware Player started.

What immediate became obvious is that indeed you can create a new virtual machine with player. In advance I had downloaded the latest release of Puppy Linux: Lucid Puppy 5.1.1 so I had a distribution to try out. When you choose to “Create a New Virtual Machine” a wizard appears which consists of 5 windows:

1. You indicate from where the operating system is to be installed (in my case CD-Rom or ISO file) or whether you want to install it later. With the last option only a “blank” hard disk is created.
2. You select the Guest Operating System
3. You specify the Virtual Machine Name and the location where it is to be created
4. You specify the disk size and indicate whether you want the Virtual Machine created as a single file or with multiple files
5. Provides an overview of the options you have chosen plus gives you the possibility to customize the hardware

After this the Player started nicely and Puppy Linux ran nicely. The first time it started I also excepted the installation of the VMware Tools however for some reason this did not complete. Maybe this has to do with the fact that I am basically running it as a LiveCD. The next times I started the Player I simply denied the installation of the VMware Tools.

My graphics card on my desktop is too simple to confirm whether or not the VMware Player has 3D capabilities. But I surely can confirm that with VMware Player it is possible to create a virtual machine. This was always the reason for me to prefer VMware Server over VMware Player since it use to be, as the name indicates, just a player for virtual machines. With the capability to create virtual machines with player this argument is no longer valid.

What I still have to check/figure out is:

1. Whether it is “normal” that each time you start VMware Player the Module Updater starts
2. Whether VMware Player has 3D capabilities
3. Why the VMware Tools did not install properly (yet).

Ad 1. This comment as placed by Naveen let me to the blog post “VMware vmmon compilation issues on 64-bit kernel 2.6.35“. This blog post describes clearly on how to prevent that VMware Player has to compile each time.
NOTE: I do not run a 64-bit kernel so it works also for a 32-bit kernel.

Concluding: The installation and use of VMware Player is much more trouble free compared to the installation and use of VMware Server. With the capability to create a virtual machine with VMware Player I personally have no arguments left to choose Server over Player. So I am pretty positive about this product although I am not sure yet whether it will drive me away from VirtualBox.