Re: GNU/Hurd on vmware
>> From: David R W Denny <david@chavin.net>
>>
>> On Mon, 09 Oct 2000, Ramakrishnan M wrote:
>> > Prabhu Ramachandran wrote:
>> > >
>> > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd-0009/msg00443.html
>> >
>> > Thanks for the wonderful post. It was very much informative. But in my case, I
>> > am going to install vmware on Windows. So does that mean, I have to first
>> > install GNU/Linux on vmware first and then try installing GNU/Hurd? I have
>> > never(don't want) used vmware before because is is not a free software (My home
>> > machine runs totaly on free software) and thus don't really know how things are
>> > done using that.
>> >
>> AFAIK vmware is available for Linux and for Windows 2000.
>> You can get a demo version with certain linux releases (SuSE), but I do not
>> know if it is time limited. I tried asking, nobody answered... waiting,waiting...
It's time-limited to the evaluation license. 30 days.
I've not checked, but wonder what happened to the version for NT...
>> So for windows you have to start with win2000. If you don't have this at work
>> you are stuffed.
Or NT, or one of the various Linuxes, with X, and all of the other requirements
of something like VMware.
>> Vmware lets you run OSes inside itself as a very thin host OS, so you have
>> windows nt, 98, linux, *bsd, running at the same time. I have read a report
>> which says that it crawls unless you have lots of memory (256M fine, 128M dodgy)
It's slow, because it's more an app running under the host system, as a
hardware extraction emulator, than as an OS of any kind.
It adds some things, to make the hardware extractions virtual, and
re-direct able to various resources of the host system, by the host system.
It's still limited by the host system OS, since it is a translation/extraction
emulator application.
>> It allows you to create virtual HD partitions which it takes care of itself,
>> with an existing partition, win drive, unix mount point or whatever. It is into
>> these that you install your guest OSes.
That's one way.
Real disk file systems are also usable, and for me, prefereable, as it allows
me to overcome some of the hardware limitations in Hurd ( still having that SCSI
problem, due to my own time constraints ) and build full emulations on real disks,
to be real-world tested on real hardware, sometimes in and on other machines.
>> My suspicion is, you install Hurd on its own Virtual HD in vmware, but not
>> _within_ linux in vmware if you get my drift. In that sense you do not need
>> linux, However you _would_ need some sort of unix in order to download and
>> compile any hurd bits N pieces you need to run. And Grub of course. I guess.
>> Gordon??
Yes.
VMware looks like real hardware to the guest OS, within the limitations
of the host OS to present hardware to the VM virtual machine.
>> for myself, would love to see an Open Source virtual machine operating system
>> (OSVMOS? OSVOS? OVMOS? OVOS!!!!) which would just map all the devices, take care
>> of partitioning, and then timeslice among all the guest OSes as you run. Just
>> that, Nothing Else.
There are two that I know of, though the names escape me.
None are quite as good as VMware, but give them time.
I bought VMware ( knowing that it runs against the grain of FSF )
because it was first, and it works, and it allows development and
experimentation of "other things", I can afford it, and it's expedient.
The biggest advantage to something like VMware is the ability to make
perhaps catastrophic experiments on a non-persistant disk, so that the
various crashes and fatal mistakes are not writen to real hardware.
Otherwise, we're better off experimenting on expendable real hardware,
with real code, so that various bugs as might be found in Hurd, are not
subject to being actually a limitation of the emulator, free or otherwise.
It's both cheaper, and easier, to simply buy another disk, plug it in IN PLACE OF
your current disk ( or disks ) and go for it.
The down-side, is that real crashes do real damage to real disks this way.
I neither advocate, nor oppose VMware, or any of its cousins.
It has its place, as do others.
The trick, is to keep them in their place.
--
Cowboy
This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does
something child-like.
-- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington
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