Virtualization

A while back, Oracle cloned Red Hat Enterprise Linux as Unbreakable Linux (now 'Oracle Enterprise Linux'). It offered nothing new over REHL (or for that matter, CentOS), and the only difference was the support price. Needless to say, Oracle Enterprise Linux hasn't been a stellar success.

A long while ago I wrote of how to install vmware player on Ubuntu 6.06 aka 'Dapper Drake'. That post has been one of my more popular, and since then installing VMWare player has gotten a lot easier.

Update:: I've made a new guide that's an extension of this. You may find it useful for more modern versions of ubuntu ... check it out

Disclaimer: I use kernel version 2.6.15-26-386. Yours may differ. Use

uname -r

to tell what you're running

You need:

apt-get install gcc-3.4 build-essential linux-headers-2.6.15-26-386

If you use a different kernel version, search the package repository for the appropriate headers package.

Before you install vmware player, you must first set the current C compiler to GCC 3.4. To do this:

export CC=gcc-3.4

The reason for this is that the vmware kernel module must must be compiled with the same compiler used to compile the kernel. In Dapper, this is seemingly gcc 3.4.

Then, download and install the tar.gz vmware install package, extract it and run the perl setup script.

When the time comes to give the path to the kernel source headers, use the path

/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-26-386/include

The rest of the install should go without a hitch.

I'm not a big fan of Fedora Core, despite how many people swear by it. But anything redhat has huge visability -- that's a major problem in my opinon.

If you want traditional 'enterprise' Red-Hat, go with Centos (a debranded version of RHEL).

This article is more oriented towards power windows users. My thoughts on the matter is that an inexperienced computer user familiar with windows is more likely to be unable to make the transition by themselves.