Re: [gentoo-dev] 2005.0: x86 test-stages and minimal test-livecd ready

At 03:19 PM 1/16/2005, you wrote:

>On Saturday 15 January 2005 13:48, Michiel de Bruijne wrote:
>
>I have compared vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz from gsx-3.1.0-build9089 and
>ws-4.5.2-build8848.

<snip>

>It seems like VMware haven't maintained the vmware-linux-tools for some time,
>because the precompiled modules are only for old versions of the supported
>distributions.

My understanding is that gsx 3.1 and ws 4.5 were both released in mid-2004,
and were targeted to provide support for commercial distributions at that time
w/ minimal ability to run on generic 2.6.x kernels.

WS5 is in the process of being released, and I hope an update to GSX will
follow. They should have more recent versions of the linux vmware-tools
tar file?

ESX 2.5 was also recently released, but I haven't had a chance to look at it
yet.

Other than some issues with the 2.6.10 pre-releases which contained the 4-level
memory reorg, I haven't had any serious issues getting the tools modules to
compile
on any of the gentoo 2.4 or 2.6 kernels. On a few occasions, I've had to
fiddle with
the gcc 3 detection code in the module source, that's it.

We should really talk with someone at vmware to clarify which versions of
vmware
need which versions of the tools, and the compatibility with later
releases. My
hypothesis at the moment, is that each version of vmware has minimum
version requirements but that otherwise the tar files are the same. When you
run the vmware-tools config script, it figures out what environment it is
running
under and enables the appropriate modules (e.g. vmmemctl under ESX).

But, we really should get vmware to confirm.

Also, I think there are enough unresolved vmware (and possibly other emulator
issues) to warrent creating a seperate mailing list or irc channel
(gentoo-vm?).
Xen will no doubt become popular.

I'd like to focus on:
- Improving livecd support
- Filling out the necessary ebuilds (vmware-tools, vmware-gsx, xen stuff)
- Possibly creating cannonical install images under emulators rather than
livecd's
- Ensuring gentoo is in a good position as these technologies become more
prevalent

Regards,
Matt


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