Update on VMs under Linux?

[Kurt Granroth]

Bryan O'Neal wrote:
> How do you run your exiting windows in emulation?  I have a duel boot
> box I have been wanting to stop dule booting, but I did not want to give
> up my windows install (I have it just the way I like it after years of
> tinkering) but I did not want to go through the hassle of
> ghosting/whipping/vm'ing/unghosting/ before I could use it.

I first setup the system as a dual-boot one.  This will give me my
access to the Windows side in VMWare.  I then boot into Windows directly
(no VMWare) and while there, I setup a new hardware profile.  By
default, Windows only has only the default profile and it boots it
automatically.  If you create a new one as a copy of the old one, then
all of the old settings are copied over but when you boot, it will ask
you which one you want to start.  That's the "trick" in this since if
you boot to the same profile in physical and vm mode, then Windows gets
all confused since the devices will keep changing.

After this, I create my VMWare profile to use the entire disk.  Now when
I boot, it shows me the grub prompt with my Windows side and my Linux
side.  I make absolute SURE that I don't let it boot my Linux side since
who knows what kind of corruption could result from that!

Anyway, Windows asks for which hardware profile I want to boot and I
choose my VMWare one.  The first time I do so, Windows will recognize a
  lot of new hardware and configure it.  After the first time, though,
it just zips into Windows with no problems.

I saw something online a while back describing making a virtual floppy
boot image to use as the VMWare boot disk to get around the 'grub'
screen... but I forget where that was.  I only access Windows every now
and then so taking the extra few seconds to choose Windows manually
isn't that big of a deal.

> Also, I tried setting up direct write access with VM Workstation 5.5 and
> you had to run VM as root to have VM directly write to the NTFS volumes
> on the hard drive.  Has this changed as well or are you suggesting
> getting full support for the FS under Linux and then setting up VM's
> network folders to some mount point?

Ah.. that tripped me up for awhile as well.  The answer is not to run as
root, but to add your normal user to the 'disk' group.  Then, just make
sure all of your /dev/[s|h]d? devices are chmod g+w and you're golden!
After that, your normal user can have full access to the raw disk
directly from inside of VMWare.