INTRODUCTION We have discussed the power of VMware ThinApp in the last tutorial; in this we will see how to work with VMware workstation as well as Virtual machines. VMware Workstation is designed to run virtual operating systems. The operating systems will run as if it is in a real system. Tools required VMware workstation – can be downloaded from www.vmware.com You can also download VMware server. (Both workstation and server will have the same GUI except for a few options. Server edition is used only to create server VM’s whereas with workstation we can create any type of VM) Any operating system, either as a bootable CD or bootable image, we will discuss both of them here. Good amount of RAM (At least 1 GB) A good PC which won’t crash often. Installing VMware workstation Installation is as usual, next->next->finish. You have to give a valid serial in order to work. The setup will create a shortcut in the desktop after installation. If its VMware workstation the shortcut will be under the name “VMware workstation”, if you install server version “VMware server console” will be the shortcut’s name. Creating a Virtual machine You can select new virtual machine thro File -> New -> Virtual machine or use shortcut (ctrl+N). Virtual machine wizard opens, click next to configure it. In the virtual machine configuration select “typical” for now, we will see the custom option later. Select the Guest operating system from the list given, windows, linux, novell, Sun solaris and other. For this tutorial Lets install ubuntu linux, so select linux option and select “ubuntu” in the version. (If you want to use 64 bit linux, select ‘ubuntu 64 bit’. Make sure that your system supports 64 bit operating system) Give the virtual machine name and the location of it. (while selecting the location make sure that you have necessary space in that drive) In the network connection options, select “do not use a network connection” . (We can change this option later on, and we will see later about every option in detail) "Disk Capacity" allocates the amount of space required for the virtual hard disk.For ubuntu we will give it as 4.2 GB, 8 GB will be the default. Leave the “allocate all the disk space now” option checked. (I just made it as 4.2 GB, nothing specific in that, You can give your own size) When you click finish, the space will be allocated for the virtual hard disk, it will show a progress bar with a label “Creating the disk”. (Wait for it to complete) Configuring the Virtual machine After creating the virtual machine the name will be displayed in the inventory. You can edit the settings by 4 ways, Right click on the name of the VM (virtual machine) in the inventory and select settings. Select “Edit virtual machine settings” in the right pane. Select settings from the VM menu. Ctrl+D The default options displayed under ‘Hardware’ tab are, Memory, Hard disk, CD-ROM, floppy, USB controller, Audio and Virtual Processors The floppy won’t be shown if you don’t have a floppy drive in your Host computer. Host means your physical computer. Memory The RAM allocated for the VM, the pointer will be in the ‘recommended memory’. No need to change this setting. If you feel the guest OS is in need of RAM you can increase it. But be sure that you don’t go beyond the Maximum recommended memory. Hard disk In the hard disk option it will show the space (4.2 GB) you gave while creating the VM. It will show ‘system free’ space too. It denotes the amount of space left in the drive, in which you saved the Virtual hard disk. CD-ROM In this page, leave the default options enabled. In the connection part, there will be a drop down box asking for the drive if you have two or more CD/DVD drives in your host computer. (even image drives are shown in this) Select the appropriate drive letter while installing ubuntu, whether the physical drive or the virtual drive. (For virtual drive you can use any program, you can use any program of your choice. If you don’t know what program to use, see the last part of this tutorial) Floppy Nothing to select in the floppy tab, leave the default options enabled (forget about this if you don’t have floppy drives in your host computer) USB controllers With this controller you can view an USB drive in the guest operating system. In the hardware tab it will indicate the presence of USB controllers in the host OS. Audio ‘Audio’ means the audio device used to hear the sound from the guest OS. Virtual Processors You can select the number of processors; you can select two if you have core2duo kind of processors. The following are the options in the options tab General In the general option the VM’s OS type and the location will be shown, You can change it if you want. Power You can select ‘enter full screen mode after powering on’ option to have a good view and also for reality. (If it enters full screen mode, you will forget that this is a virtual OS) Shared Folders This option enables file sharing between the host OS and the virtual machine. The file sharing can be enabled by adding the directories or files which you want to share Snapshots Snapshot is the backup of that VM at a particular state. To be clearer, it is like a restore point in Windows OS. The snapshot tool will create an entire backup of the settings and it will restore if anything crashes in the Virtual OS if you want. Guest isolation Guest isolation has two options in it. ‘Enable copy and paste to and from this VM’ and ‘Enable drag and drop to and from this VM’. These are options used to perform copy and paste from and to the VM. These options don’t need any explanation. Advanced Advanced options are for expert users. Leave the default options enabled. Virtual drive Virtual drives are programs used for emulating a CD/DVD image as a physical one. Many programs are available. For example i’ll name a few here. Daemon tools, Alcohol 120, powerISO, MagicISO etc. (Daemon tools is one of the best programs to use) Conclusion In this article we have seen an overview of VMware workstation, creating and configuring a Virtual Machine. We will discuss things like booting the OS with VMware, installing it etc in the part II of the tutorial.
