ArsGeek

So you've gone and downloaded VMplayer and you have it on your linux/windows machine. Now what do you do with it? Well, you can download vm's by doing a google search and simply getting the images, or you can use a nifty tool called qemu to create virtual disks, and then use VM Player to install via a CD.

As a for instance, I'm going to install a virtual version of Ubuntu on my current ubuntu install, but this should work with any OS that supports your architecture (i.e. i386, ppc, etc.).

First, we need to get Qemu. If you're on windows, simply download it from here. If you're on Ubuntu well, download it from the same place. You'll need to use Wine to run qemu in linux, I'm not sure why creation of virtual disks doesn't work in linux, but I couldn't get it to go.

I'm not going to go into details about setting up wine here, suffice it to say that this forum will have info on configuring Wine to run windows programs. A quick note – you have to have wine set to run Qemu as NT 4.0.

Once qemu is installed, we need to create a .vmdk file. This is a file that starts at about 370KB and expands to some limit that you set. For this purpose, we'll create a 5GB file.

Let's make a directory to hold our VM image.

mkdir vmplaya

cd vmplaya

Now that we have a place to play, let's create the vmdk file.

wine qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk ubuntu.vmdk 5G

That will create the file which VM Player will use as it's virtual disk.

Now we have to create something called a vmx file – this is what VM Player uses to determine what the heck it's doing. I've enclosed the vmx file I'm using below.

gedit ubuntu.vmx

Then copy this bit into the file and save it/exit.

#!/usr/bin/vmware
config.version = "7"
virtualHW.version = "3"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "512"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "ubuntu.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
floppy0.fileName = "/dev/fd0"
Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "FALSE"
displayName = "darwin-master"
guestOS = "other26linux"

priority.grabbed = "normal" priority.ungrabbed = "normal"
powerType.powerOff = "soft"
powerType.powerOn = "hard"
powerType.suspend = "hard"
powerType.reset = "soft"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"
Ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 38 88 7e 0a e2 17-71 fb 80 d7 11 74 22 da"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 38 88 7e 0a e2 17-71 fb 80 d7 11 74 22 da"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:74:22:da"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
Ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
ide0:0.redo = ""
redoLogDir = "."
ide0:0.deviceType = "ata-hardDisk"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
uuid.action = "create"
tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"

You can muck about with this once you get your vm running.

So, you've got your vmdk file and your vmx file. If you're ready my previous post, you've already installed the VM Player. Now all you need to install ubuntu is an ubuntu install disk.

Once you've got the disk, pop it into your cd drive and we're ready to go. I'll give you the command to start this off, but read on before you run the command!

Now, you're going to start vmplayer by opening a terminal window and typing:

vmplayer ubuntu.vmx

Once this starts up, immediately click your mouse into the vm window and as soon as you see the boot screen, press ESC to choose from the boot menu.

You'll want to choose option 3, boot from cd.

At this point you should see the ubuntu boot screen, and you're on your way to a virtual install of a guest os!

geek out.

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