VMware Player with Linux

After using several Live CD a few times, it is time for me to use the installation option. But I don't want to mess up my WinXP installation and make a dual boot. So I do some research to find the best solution to try all the functionality of the Penguin with out me sacrificing my WinXP. So, after some searching and reading, I found out that VMware Player is the answer.

VMware Player

VMware Player is a free VMware product. It enables user to run virtual machine on Windows or Linux PC. So meaning that if you run WinXP, you also can run Linux within your WinXP and vice versa. From www.vmware.com, it stated that "VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, VMware Server, or VMware ESX and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats." At first, I thought that I need VMware Workstation to to properly create and run Linux and for once I thought my Linux way stop there, but nope...

How to use?

Just follow this step by step guide.

Download VMware Player from this link. Click here. Beware that the file is large (>100Mb).

Install VMware Player.

If you don't have any Linux .iso file, please download.

Create a folder and put your .iso file that folder. Example D:\vmware\

Go to this site http://www.easyvmx.com/.

Click super simple - virtual machine creator.

Enter Virtual Machine Name (Example Ubuntu 8.04), Virtual Machine OS (your Linux's Distro name), Virtual Machine Memory Size (try 512MB), Virtual Machine Disk Size (default) and LiveCD(click enable and please enter your .iso file name here).

Click "Create Virtual Machine" button download My_Virtual_Machine.zip file in the next page.

Unzipped all the file in the zip file into your created folder from step 4. Make sure your Linux .iso file also in the same folder.

Run VMware Player.

Click open and go to the created folder.

Select .vmx file.

So, now your LiveCD is running with you need to burn the image file and also without you reboot your system. You also can install LiveCD without worrying your WinXP installation. The installation will use your virtual hard disk (.vmdk file). This file can be very big depending on your linux installation.

.vmx file can be open using normal text editor (example, notepad). You can play a bit with the setting but you need to restart VMPlayer to see the effect. If you afraid to make any adjustment, open www.easyvmx.com, and click easyvmx or easyvmx v2.0. Try enable your usb setting to enable you thumbdrive in Linux environment.

I test the guide using Ubuntu 8.04 with easyvmx setting. Everything work fine. I wrote this post in my Ubuntu environment without any hassle. The only problem I have is to mount my hard disk.