vmware on linux

[martyouel]

Hi,
I've installed VMWARE on an Xubuntu distro.

Is it possible to start vmware in console, without using gnome?
Currently, the only way I was able to start vmware is from gnome desktop.

With gnome running, my linux os take approximatly 100 megs of ram but I need to use less ram that I can, so that's why I want to shutdown gnome.

My computer is a p4 2.8 ghz with 1 gig of ram and I need to run two vmware virtual machines with Windows XP, both vm should use at least 400 megs of ram...so that's why my linux os must not use many rams.

Thanks in advance.

[bigtomrodney]

If you're running Xubuntu you're probably using Xfce desktop which is one of the lighter ones. To run VMware graphically you will need to at least have X running - you might look at something even lighter like IceWM but you could go the whole hog and either run a vanilla X session or try TWM -

Tom& - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a twm package available in the repositories - just launch Synaptic Package Manager to install it.

[drl]

Hi.

The version of VMWare I use (1.04) allows 3 settings for host ram:

Fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM - Strictly apply the reserved memory limit set in the top of the panel. This setting imposes the tightest restrictions on the number and memory size of virtual machines that can run at a given time. Because the virtual machines are running entirely in RAM, they have the best possible performance.

Allow some virtual machine memory to be swapped - Allow the host operating system to swap a moderate amount of virtual machine memory to disk if necessary. This setting allows you to increase the number or memory size of virtual machines that can run on the host computer at a given time. This setting could also result in reduced performance if virtual machine memory must be shifted between RAM and disk.

Allow most virtual machine memory to be swapped - Allow the host operating system to swap as much virtual machine memory to disk as it wants. This setting allows you to run even more virtual machines with even more memory than the intermediate setting does. In this case, too, performance can be lower if virtual machine memory must be shifted between RAM and disk.

Of course there will be performance implications as noted, but this way you can see how things go, and perhaps later buy some additional ram. Except for servers, memory is very inexpensive these days.

You can also allocate differing amounts of memory to individual VMs.

I think there is a lot of flexibility with VMWare. Changes to the VM description would require a reboot, but I have found booting to be of acceptable speed ... cheers, drl