I have a dual-boot system with Suse 10.2 and Suse 10.3B1. Under 10.2 I run VMWare server and run WinXP in a virtual machine but have problems with the driver for a HP Laserjet 108 printer which crashes Windows every time I try to use the printer in the virtual disk. This plus the fact that VMWare only supports two USB ports is making me consider a migration to VBox.
Before committing to VBox I set up Suse 10.3 running VBox 1.4, installed XP and found printing works fine. However I still have a number of problems with VBox: I can't seem to convert (or is it use) my VMWare VMDK virtual disks to use under VBox; so far I have not been able to share files between guest and host; so far Samba file sharing is uni-directional - I can see shared files on the XP guest from the Linux host but not vice versa; so far I have been unable to set up access to a real hard drive on the host from the guest.
Bottom line is that I have to continue experimenting with VBox until I am able to resolve these problems. In any event, migration will have to be deferred until VBox is able to handle snapshots in VMDK files in a future release (p53 of the manual) as I really depend on them.
In the meantime, it would be much more convenient to have a Linux host able to "dual-boot" VMWare and VBox from this host instead of dual booting Linux. Since I'd rather not risk compromising either Linux setup at this time, I was wondering if anyone had tried this "dual-booting" of the two virtualization programs and with what success. I know that this is not easily possible with Xen and VMware as the Xen installation removes the VMware kernel module and VMWare has to be re-installed to be usable again.
And while I was writing this it occurred to me that my inability to use my VMDK files in VBox may be caused by them having existing snapshots. Could this be the case?
Any responses greatly appreciated.
Allan
Can VMWare and VirtualBox co-exist on the same Linux host
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mcp
- Volunteer
- Posts: 132
- Joined: 12. May 2007, 23:55
- Primary OS: PCLinuxOS
- VBox Version: PUEL
- Guest OSses: Windows XP Pro
I currently have both Vmware 5.5 and Vbox 1.4 installed on my Xandros Pro 4.1 system and have had no problems. I also have had both open and both running XP at the same time. I would say that a limiting factor is probably be how much ram you have. Just make sure you have enough for them and you shouldn't have any problems.
MCP
MCP
I think I'll give up on VBox. I spent a whole day yesterday trying to decipher the various instructions on setting up VBox bridged networking and finally got it up and running. When I tried to restart it today I found to my horror that not one of the instructions I had so laboriously entered yesterday had taken permanently despite the implication in the manual that I was dealing with a permanent installation. I have neither the time nor the patience to start the whole process over until such time as someone either provides much clearer instructions than I've seen so far or the setup automates the process as in done in VMware.
Meanwhile thanks for the feedback.
Allan
p.s. In case the day comes when I try again are you using bridged networking and if so what steps need to be taken to add VMWare machines to the bridge?
Meanwhile thanks for the feedback.
Allan
p.s. In case the day comes when I try again are you using bridged networking and if so what steps need to be taken to add VMWare machines to the bridge?
I stand corrected. I am now able to get both VMWare and VBox up and running on the same SuSE 10.2 Linux host with full access to the shares on my Samba server. The secret appears to have been either setting up TCP/IP in windows to have a fixed IP address or to set up my Samba server to access both eth0 and br0. I'm not sure which change did the trick but having spent several complete days trying to get this all working, I'm not about to change anything at this time.
Allan
Allan