Using debian-cloud-images with VMWare?

[Paul Lockaby <paul@paullockaby.com>]

Hello! Please tell me if I'm in the wrong forum and I'll try somewhere else.

Using bits and pieces of documentation from around here (thanks Noah Meyerhans) and other places I've figured out how to create AWS EC2 AMIs for buster. I'd like to use the same process to create something that I can boot up with VMWare Fusion so that I have an image for local development that is pretty identical to what I have on AWS.

I've successfully converted the "raw" file that debian-cloud-images generates into a "vmdk" file and it boots but it won't actually start the init process. It freezes when it finishes loading the kernel.

Is what I'm trying to do possible? What step am I missing? This is the command that I'm using to create my ec2 images:

./debian-cloud-images build buster ec2 amd64 --build-id manual --version 1 --override-name ec2-buster-image --build-type official

I've tried changing "ec2" to "generic" and "genericcloud" with no success.

Thanks,
-Paul