Author Topic: How to Create a Virtual Image (Read 7264 times)

Cameron · « **on:** April 23, 2009, 05:53:20 AM »

as knack requested, i think

Warning: Requires having the installation software for an operating system.

1: First of all you will need software to run the image, so go and download VMware from http://www.vmware.com/download/player/ . I recall you have to enter some information into the site to register or something which is quite annoying, but do that anyway.
2: Install VMware Player.
3: Visit http://www.easyvmx.com/easyvmx.shtml This is where you create the .vmx file for VMware to read, but it does not contain the operating system, I will get to that later.
- Set up the Virtual Hardware any way you want according to your computer's specifications, so don't overdo the memory size or Windows will lag massively. For Guest OS, select the operating system you are wishing to run as an image (Windows will of course require a CD key)
- Virtual Machine Description doesn't really matter, just enter what you want, eg: Ubuntu 8.0.1 for description and the same for long, it doesn't matter.
- Select your NIC
- Dont enable floppy drives, noone uses them.
- CD-ROM must be enabled to install the operating system, but don't enable the .iso one.
- The harddisc drives are the size that the .vdmk is allowed to reach, google SCSI if you want to know what it does, but I don't tick that box
- The rest of the settings should be self explanitory, just DONT enable the Direct X stuff down the bottom unless you want a 5% chance of having a good image.
4: Download the package of files it gives to you, i think its in a .zip or .rar and extract them into a folder on a harddisc that has about 700mb of space or more.
5: Now you insert the CD that has the operating system on it. This is where it gets tricky if you don't know what you are doing. Windows will obviously have come in a CD package thing, or unless you have a cracked version, etc. For Linux, you must download the .iso file/s from the website that they are hosted on, eg http://www.ubuntu.com/. Then you must burn that .iso to a disc. I don't know of any good free software that will burn that, but I'm sure there are programs out there. The burner then burns the .iso file to the disc, and then you insert the disc to the drive.
6: Now we get to install the operating system to the image files. You run VMware, find the .vmx file and run it. It should come up without having anything installed and will go towards a CD Drive that you assigned in the setup at easyvmx. It will then run the installation of the operating system, so follow all onscreen instructions during the installation process. When it wants to write to a partition though, there should only be 1 partition in there, the size of what you chose in the easyvmx setup and you choose it. Once the installation is complete, depending on what you installed, it should automatically reboot the image.
7: Once the image is rebooted, the image should run the operating system in a window, and there you go.

Please tell me if I went wrong somewhere, I havn't done that in a while and I took it all off memory. As for the ISO Burners, if someone could list some free ones that would be great

. Man that took a long time to write while I'm half asleep

.

edit: look at what knack said below for an iso burner

KnacK · « **Reply #1 on:** April 23, 2009, 06:08:24 AM »

imgburn for your iso files

Nice writeup.

I am a VMware shop so I use the industrial strength version, ESX 3.5 for virtualizing.

Garrett · « **Reply #2 on:** April 23, 2009, 06:41:11 AM »

What is the main reason for using this?

KnacK · « **Reply #3 on:** April 23, 2009, 06:42:25 AM »

Essentially you can have an image of an operating system running on your desktop without having to dual boot your pc.

Garrett · « **Reply #4 on:** April 23, 2009, 07:22:59 AM »

So if am running XP, I can use the windows vista OS I have installed too while still on XP?

Fuzz Ball · « **Reply #5 on:** April 23, 2009, 07:27:03 AM »

Yeah I think so... but more intended for different OS companies, rather than upgrades...
Dual OS I imagine would really crunch your processor... but maybe I'm wrong.

XtremeBain · « **Reply #6 on:** April 23, 2009, 08:22:19 AM »

I'm currently working with the VI Perl SDK to collect performance metrics on all our VMware clusters and import them into our existing performance/capacity management system. I started using VMware Workstation years ago for Linux testing and also used it to build everything I needed to study my MCSE, that was really helpful. They have made a massive amount of improvements since then with their ESX hosts, and their VirtualCenter is very nice if you like to point and click.

sk89q · « **Reply #7 on:** April 23, 2009, 12:19:38 PM »

I use VMs to test stuff in different environments, install stuff from questionable places, and do a few other things. <:

Garrett · « **Reply #8 on:** April 23, 2009, 02:34:02 PM »

could this be possible used to allow an application to be installed in one place but distributed to multiple operating systems on one computer?

FluKe · « **Reply #9 on:** April 23, 2009, 03:41:42 PM »

I think so.

KnacK · « **Reply #10 on:** April 23, 2009, 04:07:06 PM »

Quote from: Garrett on April 23, 2009, 02:34:02 PM

could this be possible used to allow an application to be installed in one place but distributed to multiple operating systems on one computer?

No.

THink of it as having another pc in your pc that is running acompletely seperate and isolated operating system.

ViciouZ · « **Reply #11 on:** April 24, 2009, 09:45:15 AM »

Quote from: Garrett on April 23, 2009, 02:34:02 PM

could this be possible used to allow an application to be installed in one place but distributed to multiple operating systems on one computer?

I found a good solution is to have a shared partition in a common filesystem like FAT32 and then keep source/multi-os apps on it. I used to do this with FrostWire and DarkPlaces.

KnacK · « **Reply #12 on:** April 24, 2009, 10:21:09 PM »

I just got done doing this to a pc at the house and also to my work laptop.

This should be fun

Cameron · « **Reply #13 on:** April 24, 2009, 11:00:47 PM »

The worst part about Virtual Images is that the amount of memory they sometimes need. I've only got 1GB of ram with single core (although its 3Ghz) and having the image up and running makes windows run as slow as a snail

.

KnacK · « **Reply #14 on:** April 25, 2009, 10:14:06 AM »

You absolutely need more mem to do this.

For example:

I have a dell server with quad xeons at work with 128gb of mem running 7 virtual servers with room to spare. But I'm also using VMware ESX3.5 as a host.

Expanding on this a bit, VMware makes a converter that you can run on a stand alone pc or server and converts it to a virtual image that you can then run on the ESX host. Slick as snot for replacing outdated hardware.

Fuzz Ball · « **Reply #15 on:** April 26, 2009, 07:01:04 AM »

Quote from: KnacK on April 25, 2009, 10:14:06 AM

I have a dell server with quad xeons at work with 128gb of mem running 7 virtual servers with room to spare. But I'm also using VMware ESX3.5 as a host.

That's one heck of a computer... how much did it cost?

KnacK · « **Reply #16 on:** April 26, 2009, 07:41:20 AM »

over 15k

sk89q · « **Reply #17 on:** April 26, 2009, 11:15:31 AM »

OVER 9000?!

...had to.

KnacK · « **Reply #18 on:** April 26, 2009, 11:23:52 AM »

Let's just say its a very purpose built server.

6 x 300gb SAS drives + 2 x 72 gb SAS drives
128 gb mem
dual power supplies
remote access card
2 port SCSI card
4 nic ports
and yet still only has 16 mb of video mem

Fuzz Ball · « **Reply #19 on:** April 27, 2009, 01:08:30 AM »

How did you get the 128 GB of ram?
And only a 16 MB graphics card? lol