[geeks] VMware and CentOS

[Eric Railine]

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Ido Dubrawsky <idubraws at dubrawsky.org> wrote:
> I have a VALinux 2240 2U with dual 1 GHz Pentium III and 2G memory. I've
>  installed CentOS 4.5 on it and VMware Server 1.0.5.  I've had everything
>  from VMware 1.0 to 1.0.5 on it but everytime there's enough disk
>  activity the host OS goes belly up and I lose all my work.

Out of curiosity, what constitutes 'enough disk activity'?  FWIW, I've
run VMware Server 1.0.x on CentOS 4.x on several boxen (older
Compaq/HP DL series 320/360/380s, a Dell PowerEdge 750) w/o seeing
this behavior.

>  My suspicion is that it's VMware Server that's destabilizing the system
>  since ever since I installed VMware Server 1.0.5 this morning it has
>  been crashing even MORE frequently.  Has anyone else had similar
>  experiences?  Should I migrate to XenSource?  Any other recommendations.
>  I'd like to keep this box as a virtual lab but I really need it to be
>  stable.

I'm guessing you're only running Linux/BSD as guests?  Xen doesn't
support non-modified guests (Windows) on that hardware.

Have you tried ESX on that hardware?  3.5 is a free download and comes
with a 60 day trial license (older versions you had to register for a
license and then apply it; now it's active on install).  I'm running
it on a 1 year old HP 'media PC' at home (since 3.5 now supports SATA
for storage) and it's running great.  Virtual Center can also be
downloaded & tested for free.

Otherwise, you might want to try VirtualBox (virtualbox.org).

-Eric