VMWare released a beta of their flagship application, VMWare 4.0 Build 4183. The new version includes support for new versions of Linux and Windows OSes, better VESA BIOS, ACPI and APIC support, better sound, new interface under Linux and more. In the meantime, the OpenOSX company released recently “WinTel”, a re-packaged version of Bochs for MacOSX, with a new easy to use interface.
VMWare 4.0 Beta Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I have used VMWare 3.1.1 Workstation on my old computer, and I mus say that it is a very good VM. I could never get it to install Windows 95, or even Windows 3.1 for that matter, but it was great for running a DOS environment in Windows XP. However, on my current computer, performance is so slow, that I can see the screen re-draw. What are the minimum requirements for VMWare 4.0? Would it run properly on my current machine with the following specifications:
Pentium 1 166
512MB Micron SDRAM
40GB Maxtor HDD
6.34GB Western Digital HDD
1.5GB Western Digital HDD
SB16PCI
Win 2000 SP4 RC 4.36
33.6Kbps Rockwell ISA modem
Lite-On LTR 12 X 10 X 32 CDRW
3.5″ Hiatachi FDD
DFI 586ITOX Rev G MoBo
S3 Trio64 V2
KFC 14″ moniter
PS2 Keyboard
PS2 Mouse
USB 1.1
3Com 10/100 ISA NIC
16 bit color @ 800 X 600 @90Hz
I have used VMware for a couple of years now and have effortlessly installed Windows, Linux, Solaris and BeOS into virtual environments.
Now I use VMware 3.2 to give me a linux command prompt on my windows desktop.
I would recommend a 500Mhz celeron or higher with at least 256MB RAM depending on the guest OS.
You do not need to list your modem, graphics card, monitor, etc as they are emulated under vmware. If they work on the host OS they will work under vmware.
Are you sure you have a p166? I can’t imagine W2K working on a machine of that nature.
A basic rule of thumb is that your PC should have enough CPU speed and enough RAM to run 2 OS’s at the same time.
You have to be kidding me. You are trying to emulate whole modern OSes on a P166?? This is crazy…. I mean, emulation (actually, VMWare is a runtime engine, and not 100% an emulator, but still..) can be from 10 to 70 times slower than the native speed.
I have here a *dual* Celeron 533 with VMware and is just slow (not as slow as Bochs though).
To use VMWare, I would recomment anything above 1 GHz. Sure, it will run on 500 Mhz PC, but it will be painfully slow, so don’t try it with anything less, except if you like painful runtimes.
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws4/doc/intro_hostreq_ws.html#1006095
The VMWare 4 *requires* an i686 architecture it seems, and minimum of 400 or 500 Mhz. Still, I would recommend at least 1 GHz for adequate runtime.
(vmware 3.2) on my 1.3Ghz/768MB it runs winXP on linux very well. many apps are very responsive – feels like 800mhz to native – depending on the app. there are some trivial short freezes when I use selecting an area in a window whether the app is excel or photoshop. this seems to be a consistent phenomena with the the newer redhat kernels. the 2.4.14 kernel ran a bit smoother – Vmware4 is built with redhat 8 – 8.1, so this problem may be eliminated. I have to try this beta to see for myself.
PC Hardware
* Standard PC
* 500MHz or faster P6-class processor (recommended; 400MHz minimum)
Compatible processors include
o Intel: Celeron, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Xeon (including “Prestonia”)
o AMD: Athlon, Athlon MP, Athlon XP, Duron, Opteron
* Multiprocessor systems supported
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws4/doc/releasenotes_ws4.html#dosgues…
Vmware4 is built with redhat 8 – 8.1 in mind. that sounds better
With the right amount of memory, Windows 2000 can run on anything. I used to run Windows 2000 with 256MB of RAM on a Pentium II 266mHz machine and it ran just fine (not even very slow, actually, it was really surprising). With double the RAM and half the clock speed, I can imagine it running slightly slower, however still extremely usable.
I tried this a few days ago on my SuSE 8.1, but I couldn’t get it to work. It kept complaining about the kernel source being different from the running kernel.
i can actually run Windows 2000 on a Pentium 200 Laptop with 64MB of Ram… It can be a little sluggish at times but I can use it wirelessly to browse the net with IE6 even, it did mke a difference when I went and disabled a lot of the unneeded services. I’ve even got O2k on it and it runs fine. VMWARE provides a lot of different documents to improve guest OS speed… following them can really make a difference. BTW I am running 4.0 Beta and it seems even snappier… and the new KVM mode is pretty slick to run multiple vm’s at the same time
I just tried the beta4 for linux – its sweet. even as it debugs XP
flies. very nice interface – its gtk. sound has improved such as streaming audio. yes. there are added features. if you have at least 1GHz system with plenty of ram – try ity out! this sure beats the hell out of dual booting!
I was quite surprised at how well VPC also ran BeOS but with some issues since it ain’t supported.
I would like to know how BeOS runs now on VMWare too and what issues there are?
Is VMWares USB2 support for say external HD transparent to guest?, does the guest have to know that the HD is USB2 or does it just look like another IDE HD?
How well does it perform on a dual cpu?, ie does the dual cpu make up for the sluggish response I would expect on a single cpu even at 1GHz+.
Thanks
Check out those wintel prices! I can’t beleive they are charging *that much* for (mostly as far as I can see) free software! And their site looks like crap.
Yes, I am 100% sure it is a P1 166Mhz. I have tried to overclock it to 200Mhz by changing the FSB, but I just get system lockups. I have 3 fans, so I know overheating is not a problem. The only issue I have with Windows 2000 on this machine is the staert up time. I have my data on my 7200RMP 40GB HDD, so it is not that bas as far as preformance goes. I run Mozilla and Netscape 7 without any difficulties. I have even installed XP on the system, and after disabling all the new UI effects, its preformance is similar to Windows 2000. Windows Server 2003, preforms exprodinarily well on this system also. The only OS that I could not get to run well is RedHat 7.3. Xwindows failed to start, and “startx” gave me memory allocation errors. I fdisked that within 3 hours of initial install. Suse 8.0, Mandrake 8.2 Professional, and Mandrake 8.1 preform very well on my machine.
Thank you for telling me that VMWare would not perform to my expectations before I purchased a new copy of it. Now I have to upgrade my machine just to use the existing copy of VMWare I already have. I think I will just setup a multiple boot system. This way, I would not have to worry about emulation.
With VMWare 3.1.1 I have used it on a Intel Celeron Laptop running at 800mhz and everything works great I have no problems running it at that speed. I cant wait until I get 4.0, as for the fella that installed it on a 166 I have to say performance must have been very crappy
I don’t think $30 is *that much* for the work of creating a nice interface to the uber-complex configuration files of bosch, in fact I’d love to have something similar for my KDE…
You must have a super machine dude. Except for one problem, more than likely I think you are telling a tall tale. Windows XP Pro will not rn on a 166 a Pentium class 300 mhz is required at the minimum. and it will be dog slow. As for Windows Server 2003, forget it it wont even run so I know you are pulling our leg there. A 133 is required for Windows 2000 and I have run Windows 2000 on a 133 with 64 Mb of RAM and I would not do it again. What Im trying to tell you if you are going to come in here and tell a lie, at least try to make it somewhat believeable. I mean SuSE 8 probably installed on your machine and I believe it ran, but I doubt it ran very well.
I got tons of error messages, and later a segfault trying to create a virtual partition. I’ve submitted the incident to the VMWare folks.
Damn fine, been using it for allkinds of work.
Had some issues with Win95, Dos, and simply did not get win 3.11 working, but nonetheless, its one of my favoured tools on a computer
AdmV
Me too, me too! I already have installed w2K on a P166 with 64 MB of RAM, it runs acceptably, although it starts swapping pretty early, with 128 MB it should be acceptable. Some time ago , Tom’s hardware even installed XP on a P100 with 512 MB. I have also tried XP on P166/64MB, it installs, but is dog slow.
From my experience, 2000 should run quite well on any Pentium with enough RAM, XP may be acceptable when given 256 MB …
Listen carefully Windows XP Pro or otherwise will not install on anything less than a 300 mhz Processor machine. It is not possible. Do you want to know what happens if you try to install it on a machine like that, A) it takes a couple of days to load onto the computer, B) it will not even boot. I have tried it before. Did not work. So quit filling the forums up with lies and crap…
Hi Robert, I know, you won’t believe your eyes, but here is the screenshot made by well-known Tom’s Hardware. They installed and successfully used WinXP on an P1 100 with 512MB RAM. They even tell that it is a usable system.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-01.html
Sorry for the typo in your name, Roberto.
I just tried this beta on windows to boot an already-installed copy of Suse 8.1. Works great except for the wireless card (I didnt really make an effort there). Whats more (ashamed as I am to say so), I have a failed build of Xfree 4.3.0 (some libGL.?? problem) due to which X doesnt start any more when I boot up to linux. Surprizingly, however, X worked fine when I booted it up under vmware! Whats more, Yast2 automatically detected everything and installed it. Just for fun, I even tried running Crossover Office under linux (I know, I know) inside of vmware. I’ve tried to get the 3.x versions working under linux, but it was largely a pain to get everything right. I dont know if its just the new version, or the windows version of it which is easier, but it took about 5 mins to create a virtual machine & boot up my already-installed copy of linux. Wow!
I have a new custom P4 2.8 (845PE chipset), 1GB DDR 333, and Windows XP. VMWare 3.2 runs MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better on my P4 2.8 than on my Celeron 533 OR P3 800 laptop. Also as I mentiones, VMWare is STILL faster than VPC even though VPC 5 was MUCH faster than VPC 4.
Oh yes another thing. I got Win2k SP2 to run on a Pentium 133 once. The system has 512MB RAM though. But Win2k is still SLOOOOWWWWW on that P133. I also heard that someone got WinXP Home to run on a machine with Pentium 100 with 1GB of memory.
running 2000 on a Pentium is possible, installing XP on a P166/64MB is possible, but actually USING it is very very slow (i.e. it’s not usable), installation also took more than an hour IIRC. (certainly not days) “it didn’t work when YOU tried it” doesn’t mean it’s impossible … 300 MHz is not some magic mark which makes windows xp work …
i’m running redhat 8, with vmware session providing windows 2000 (for ms admin tools, lotus notes & other foisted on stuff)
the vm’d windows 2000 sessions feels perfectly smooth.
but i suppose p4 1.7 and 512mb ram probably helps.
Windows XP Pro will not rn on a 166 a Pentium class 300 mhz is required at the minimum…
Beg to differ. Windows XP (Home and Pro) will run on a 166. It is slower than snail snot, but it will, in fact, run. That minimum is what Microsoft suggested to get a bearable response from the OS. That said, faster chip speed is better. I am using a 2 GHz P-IV for XP Home and there are still times when I curse the apparent lack of speed.
I successfully installed win2k on a friend’s computer. she
was running a 120MHz w/ 64MBs of ram – it was useable
enough for her to browse the net, check email, use a word processor (ie. word6), it ran slowly but acceptable for simple tasks. it actually felt more responsive then win98
at times. more intrestingly it was a compaq presario.
I used vmware1.0beta on a ~110Mhz a few times
(well a p60 w/ the 120MHz overdrive – remember those?)it ran win3.1 very nicely. I finally shelled out for a pII 300Mhz w/128mb gigabyte mobo – vmware 2.0 ran nt4 under linux(rhat6) without a hitch. 300Mhz is still decent for the average user these days the 100 – 166s are painful to watch I must say. I cant believe a 133Mhz sys made my mouth water back in mid 90s. I would like to try wintune2.0
on a 2GHz+ system for kicks.
In the BeOS Max site there and article where they’re talk about the issues running MAX Beos un Vmware.
http://www.beosmax.org/vmwareIssues.htm
i’m running VMWARE on a machine with a P3 533mhz with 515 ram (256 for the guest) and it moves very well..
i will tru to install the new leak build of windows longhorn 4008 tomorrow..
that you can boot an already installed os from this? I have a dual boot system right now, so I could say, be running gentoo and decide I need to do something in windows and just boot my already installed windows in vmware? Or would I have to make a new installation of xp in vmware for it to work?
“Windows XP Pro will not rn on a 166 a Pentium class 300 mhz is required at the minimum. and it will be dog slow. As for Windows Server 2003, forget it it wont even run so I know you are pulling our leg there.”
Actually, I am not. I can re-install it, and in 5 hours, I can post a screenshot for you. It will tell you exactly what I am running. As for Windows Server 2003, The minimum specifications on the CD set say it requires 133Mhz, 128MBRAM. Reccomended spacifications for X86 based machines are 733Mhz, with 256MB RAM. It will handle up to 32GB of RAM. These specifications are for Windows Server Enterprize edition. I have proven that it is indeed possible to run Windows Server 2003 on a machine with specifications such as mine.
As for Windows XP, I fear you must have misread the box. The so called minimum requirements are as follows:
PC With 300Mhz or higher processor clock speed RECOMENDED; 233 Mhz minimum requred (Single or dual processor systems.* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athalon/Duron family, or compatible processor reccomended.
128MB of RAM or higher reccomended (64MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features.)
1.5GB of available hard disk space*
Super VGA 800*600 or higer resolution video adapter and moniter.
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
*Actual minimum requirements will vary based on your system and the applications and features you choose to install. Additional hard disk space may be required if you are installing over a network. For more information, please see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp .
I have added emphisis. The text is not in bold on the Windows XP Professional box.
“Listen carefully Windows XP Pro or otherwise will not install on anything less than a 300 mhz Processor machine. It is not possible. Do you want to know what happens if you try to install it on a machine like that, A) it takes a couple of days to load onto the computer, B) it will not even boot. I have tried it before. Did not work. So quit filling the forums up with lies and crap…”
As you propably do not know, there is a well known undocumented switch that you can use to get Windows 95 or above to install on pretty much any hardware. this switch is /nm. This desables the minimum requirement check during Windows setup. I belive this was first imlimented in Windows Chicago Biuld 122, but I am not 100% sure.
So, If you would like I can re-install XP and post a screenshot on my webspace. Let me know if you need this much proof.
I ran Windows 2000 on a P100, 48MB RAM and found it to be about as fast as Windows 98 on the same machine. It worked fine, I even played some games on it.
I was referring to how for example they charge $60 more for the package that includes the GIMP.
dwilson, I believe the functionality to run an already installed alternative OS on another physical partition is there but I haven’t tried it and it may need some other kind of addon.
The way I use vmware is create a virtual file system, stored in a single file in your home dir. You can give it a try with a simple “emerge vmware-workstation” The current version in portage is 3.2.0.2230-r1 and works great. The 4.x version is not there yet.
You could probably backup your XP install with ghost, drive image or your preferred backup soft, then restore the image from within the vmware session. An added benefit of this is that your XP install can be held in a file no bigger than the actual amount of data used. So if you have a free gig or two on your XP install you can reclaim that by moving to a vmware install and freeing that XP partition. Beware though that directx doesn’t work and that vmware emulates most hardware so your current drivers will be obsolete and unneeded, being replaced with vmwares own.
> that you can boot an already installed os from this?
Yes. When you add your virtual machines, the wizard will take you through several options, one of which will be called ‘Select a disk.’ There, select ‘use a physical disk,’ it will warn you that this option is for advanced users, and that data-corruption is the risk involved. In the next screen, you can select either the entire disk or partitions, and select the partitions in the following screen. In my case, I tried the opposite of what you want to do: I booted an already-installed Suse 8.1 from within windows, but I suppose the process will be similar.
Dont believe it, sorry. Try with someone who doesnt know any better. Screenshots can be altered
I am reposting this in case anyone missed it the last time (I posted really late on that thread)…
“…The first step is an add-on product to VMWare’s ESX Server product. The add-on, called VMWare Virtual SMP, is set for a second-quarter release and will allow system administrators to turn a dual-CPU server into a virtual machine that VMWare ESX Server can use to manage one or more partitions…”
VMWare scales up
http://www.entmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=5703
How can I prove that it is indeed possible?
You shouldn’t care that some random troll is calling you a liar on some random message board.
Just let it go and enjoy your evening
Good point. As I hear often:
The first ammendment to the United states Constitution gaurentees you freedom of speech, but it does not force anyone to listen”
I think I will take that advice, and ignore it. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Are there any screenshots of the new VMWare UI?
P.S. This text is written on an P233 with W2K.
As a host os, that is. And the last version that runs (using linux emulation) is 2.x
We too have a P166 running W2K here. 128MB. Only installing it took veeeery long.
VMWare is not supported on Solaris Intel!
There is need support for this platform.
At the moment I am debating between using Windows XP or a flavor of linux (probably gentoo) for my native OS and running VMware for the other OS. At the moment there is no way getting around having to use windows. Does VMware handle windows on linux better than it handles linux on windows? I have redhat 8.0 installed, 1.4ghz athlon and 1gb ram (192 allocated to the virtual machine). It still feels a little unresponsive at times. What experience have people had with this scenario?
any shots of how it looks on linux? does it still use it’s own interface (motif like) or does vmware use qt or gnome2 now?
win2k on 166… it’s possible. with enough ram. installed winxp on a 233mhz laptop with 64mb. it works. after 30 minutes of bootup, i got a login screen. after that, i uninstalled, and put win98 back in. don’t want the agony.
As many folks keep pointing out, W2K etc can run barely or fairly well on slow beasties. It runs sluggish in my P266 Laptop. Here Laptop is the key word since that tells me the HD, graphics, memory are all slower by far than modern desktop components.
I would point out that these slower Pentiums almost always started life with veeeeery slow HDs. I was in the habit of reusing old HDs for OSes like BeOS that can reuse tiny volumes of even 300M, or reuse as a swap device. This was a real bad idea, these older <2G HDs are often upto 10x slower than a recent 7200rpm HD, I just junk em now.
So a P166 with more recent HD & max mem could well perform far beyond initial expectation for non compute ie disk bound ops like running Windows dugh. Almost all P166 were shipped with components that W2K would not fit into easily ie 1G HDs, so to run W2K they must have been upgraded at least once. Did any of the posters before install on p100/166 with original HDs, I suspect not.
On that Toms HW ref given awhile back (repeated below), led to a fascinating article about relative compute speeds of p100 to P4 at 3GHz. It looks as if my 1GHz Athlon is slow by P4 at 3GHz, but what that article shows is that the most expensive PCs are only about 2-2.5 & rarely 3x faster on compute bound silly graphics tests, yet I can use the same HD, the same amount of Ram (20% slower), the same graphics card, so I don’t feel inclined to upgrade anytime soon.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-01.html
I am still curious how VMWare (or VPC) benefits more from a dual cpu or a cpu at 2x clock. My inclination tells me dual?
Indeed, I installed win2k on a P166/64MB but on a newer 6.4 GB Western Digital hard drive. Also, the machine didn’t have 64 MB of RAM in the beginning. Hard disk drive speed matters, especially when swapping is needed.
There is no way that I could have put anything larger than Windows 95 OSR2 on my machine in its original configuration. When I first bought it, it only had 16MB RAM, 15.GB 5400RPM HDD, No CDROM, No FDD. It ran barly ran Windows 95 OSR2.0
its gnome2. you get a the bluecurve look.
I tried to perform a GUI install of RedHat Phoebe2 beta under VMWare4 beta, at least the XFree86 recognised that a VESA bios is now available, unfortunately Redhat only tries to use 16bit colour depths and VMWare only makes an 8 bit colour depth available 🙁
I was able to get an X server running by changing the config file to 8 bit depth, but only a text mode install will work …