VMware Communities: Message List - VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

nick.couchman — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:13:59 GMT

That's really more a religious discussion than anything else:-). I'm familiar with both Linux and Windows and I would pick Linux because of the control you have over running services, kernel configuration, etc. In Linux you can re-compile your kernel and strip out the things you don't really want (assuming your comfortable with that), disable many services, and disable your X server altogether resulting in a fairly low overhead. With Windows you can strip down some of the services, disable the gratuitous animation and themes, resulting in relatively low overhead, as well, but (IMHO) not to the same extent as with Linux.

I'm not sure what VMware claims are the officially supported O/S's, but I think it'll run on most of the major ones. I know it runs on OpenSUSE and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, and on the various RHEL versions. I think Fedora Core would work fine, too.

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

alvinswim — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:35:24 GMT

yes, since this is a dedicated vmserver I just teminal in to the machine via ssh. and I use the vmware console to connect to it from my windows desktop

I make all my installations from my desktop

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

mikefoley — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:29:53 GMT

Wow, that's tiny. Thanks so much for posting this. I'm off to give it a try. Win2k3 for a host on a laptop is killing me!

I'm assuming that without X running, you must get to the guest via the client interface from another system?

thanks again,
mike

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

alvinswim — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:22:38 GMT

funny that you asked, I just did a base install with nothing and added the following in Yum...

Mar 30 08:45:01 Installed: glibc-kernheaders.i386 2.4-9.1.98.EL
Mar 30 08:45:01 Installed: glibc-headers.i386 2.3.4-2.19
Mar 30 08:45:02 Installed: glibc-devel.i386 2.3.4-2.19
Mar 30 08:45:02 Installed: cpp.i386 3.4.5-2
Mar 30 08:45:04 Installed: gcc.i386 3.4.5-2
Mar 30 10:05:55 Installed: compat-libstdc++-33.i386 3.2.3-47.3
Mar 30 10:06:00 Installed: libstdc++-devel.i386 3.4.5-2
Mar 30 10:06:00 Installed: compat-libstdc++-296.i386 2.96-132.7.2
Mar 30 10:09:07 Installed: compat-db.i386 4.1.25-9

this will allow everything to work including mui.

the file system was ext2 because from our tests its the fastest

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

mikefoley — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:18:08 GMT

Alvin,

What did you install for a base image of Centos? I'm curious as to what the minimum config would be for a Linux VMware Host.

Thanks!
mike

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

alvinswim — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:06:53 GMT

We install Vmware Server on Centos 4.3 which works great. we've never tried a Windows install, because of preference to lower overhead of linux. our base systems start up with 60MB ram used... and so the rest can go to Vmware

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

wolfbeast — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:07:45 GMT

I personally suggest either a minimal but stable Linux host OS or windows 2000 server host OS, since both have relatively little resource overhead. I'm not too familiar with running vmware on linux hosts myself -- it's very much a matter of preference.

Re: VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

VirtualNoitall — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:15:35 GMT

Pick whatever OS you are most familiar with. If you are equally adept at administering both then go linux. With linux you have a bit more control and you will probably we be able to do things that will result in a slimmed down footprint that will consume less resources.

I don't use RedHat but I would think VMWare Server would install on both.

VMware server Host OS, Linux or Windows

srekuets — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:36:57 GMT

Hi,

Maybe a stupid question, since ESXserver uses a stripped down RedHat kernel.

What host OS would offer the best performance for virtual machines running on VMware Server, Linux or Windows server.

In case of Linux, which version of RedHat Linux would be minimum required,
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES?

Would FedoraCore be supported as HostOS?

The current version of the server_specs.pdf document is too brief.

Kind regards,
Erik.