Vote: FreeBSD as host OS for VMware.

We are looking for running VMware on FreeBSD as host OS too.

It is a better solution for us to run FreeBSD as server, because of stability in heavy load/ performace.

Linux is the better solution for home use, not for DataCenter/ production / background OS.

(now it is difficult to set up VMware on FreeBSD, ()).

22,000 votes so far ! so could vmware please tell us how many MORE votes they need ! is it 10,000 ? 100,000 ? more ?

regards

clive (aka osde.info)

http://www.vizzr.info

+ 1 vote, need FreeBSD as a Host

another vote for FreeBSD as a supported host.

Don't make us unleash Beastie!

+1 vote for FreeBSD as a host.

Next 'FreeBSD as a host++' vote.

Any news on the subject ?

Hi,

It is not likely that VMware is going to release an version of VMware Server to be installable on FreeBSD host. The two major reasons that has also been pointed out between the lines at the VMware World Europe 2008 conference:

- analysts got it out that the return of investment would be an long period, because of the minority in FreeBSD users comunity - let's face it - enterprise IT environments and big data centers are run mostly on Linux and Windows machines, althrough FreeBSD is most probably better even in such environments (especialy now when FreeBSD 7.0 got the superior SMP scheduler for multi-way SMP);

- the lack of FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers to cooperate with VMware and give their effort to porting VMware Server to FreeBSD - VMware can't do it by itself - and FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers should make some moves to, but they aparently do not.

And well, there are other reasons to - no product of the key players in virtualizations (VMware, Xen, xVM, MS Virtual PC) does NOT have the support to run FreeBSD as host for their virtual machine server - even more - VMware is the only one, that has an stable and solid support for the FreeBSD to run as guest virtual machine. So the lack of competition is also something that VMware keeps in their minds, too.

It is sad, I too wan't the FreeBSD be able to run VMware Server as host, but I guess we will just have to wait a little bit longer, push even harder to VMware to convince them that the return of investment would be big enough and also push to the FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers to try cooperate with VMware a little bit closer and give theri 5 cents.

Kind regards, Marko.

• The lack of FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers to cooperate with VMware and give their effort to porting VMware Server to FreeBSD - VMware can't do it by itself - and FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers should make some moves to, but they aparently do not.

I was unaware they had even asked anyone for help.  VirtualBox (now owned by Sun) is asking for help on their forum.  QEMU and its kernel module run on FreeBSD at this moment.

...also push to the FreeBSD foundation and FreeBSD developers to try cooperate with VMware a little bit closer and give theri 5 cents

People in the FreeBSD community raised a bounty (http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/2007cb.html) to have someone port VMware 6 to FreeBSD.  Hopefully, VMware is helping behind the scenes. It would be nice to see at least native binaries from VMware.  I am sure that would make it easier to port the kernel module.

For VMware's sake, they better hurry with the porting effort before Sun passes them.  If I have a mix of servers, why would I want to have VirtualBox on the FreeBSD systems and VMware on the others?  I would eventually replace VMware with VirtualBox to make it easier to maintain.  Personally, I run QEMU but will give VirtualBox a try once it is working on FreeBSD.