Re: vmware and linux

john smith <John.Smith@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So it would be a good way to learn how to write device drivers without
> risking my server that I have taken time to set up?

Errr ...

The "trouble" with that is that you can't then access any real devices
because they're all inaccessable behind VMware's virtual machine
interface.
However, you can probably access the standard devices, like the serial
port and parallel port, but at the VMware interfaces they're just
software interfaces through the host OS's driver layer that look like
hardware devices inside the VM, so they'll behave differently in
terms of timing and the like, I guess.

The advantage is that you can take snapshots of the VM at any time and
recover it instantly if you break it.

Having said that, I don't know if you can take snapshots with VM player.
You certainly can with the full VMware workstation. You also can't
create VMs with VMware player altough you can probably install onto a
created, but empty, VM.

I've used VMware extensively with a windows guest on a Linux host, and
less extensively with a Linux guest on a Windows host. Both work
very well, but I've only used them at the application level of the
guest OS rather than the device driver level. I've no reason to
expect that there is anything fundamentally difficult with doing that,
though, given the above caveat about hardware access.


> "Nobody Here" <nobby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:43d8eb2a$0$1483$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> zee <spam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> HI,
>>>
>>> I want to learn about device drivers on linux. If I install a vmware
>>> player
>>> and a image of linux on it . I don't loose my windows notebook and have
>>> all
>>> the advantages of linux and if I screw up the file systems I can then
>>> take
>>> and just reinstall. By copying a few files.
>>>
>>> Does anyone else use vmware the same way I am describing?
>>
>> The "trouble" with that is that you can't then access any real devices
>> because they're all inaccessable behind VMware's virtual machine
>> interface.
>> However, you can probably access the standard devices, like the serial
>> port and parallel port, but at the VMware interfaces they're just
>> software interfaces through the host OS's driver layer that look like
>> hardware devices inside the VM, so they'll behave differently in
>> terms of timing and the like, I guess.
>>
>> The advantage is that you can take snapshots of the VM at any time and
>> recover it instantly if you break it.
>>
>> Having said that, I don't know if you can take snapshots with VM player.
>> You certainly can with the full VMware workstation. You also can't
>> create VMs with VMware player altough you can probably install onto a
>> created, but empty, VM.
>>
>> I've used VMware extensively with a windows guest on a Linux host, and
>> less extensively with a Linux guest on a Windows host. Both work
>> very well, but I've only used them at the application level of the
>> guest OS rather than the device driver level. I've no reason to
>> expect that there is anything fundamentally difficult with doing that,
>> though, given the above caveat about hardware access.
>>
>> --
>> Nobby
>
>


--
Nobby
.

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