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dp_fusion
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

CentOS 5.1 Success

I've had some problems with other non-official Linux versions (Fedora, SuSE) and was pleased to install CentOS 5.1 today and find everything works satisfactorily. The VMware tools installed fine and while dragging files works only going from guest to host, that is acceptable. Only other observation is that when running in full screen mode, pull-down menus are littered with holes. Mousing over the holes will paint them in. This doesn't happen with SuSE 10 in full screen. This goes away in single-screen mode.

Macbook Pro 1st gen, 2g ram, 200g disk drive

Fusion 1.1.1

CentOS 5.1, 640M ram, 6g disk drive, 2 procs, 3D video enabled

Installed from local iso file using Linux->Other template.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Just curious why did you select Linux/Other? FWIW Since CentOS 5 is derived from sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 when I installed it a couple months ago I just selected Linux/Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 while naming the Virtual Machine CentOS 5 and it installed without any issues.

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dp_fusion
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Because CentOS is not Red Hat no matter how far up the family tree you go. I haven't studied CentOS to know how it has or has not diverged from RH and I don't care to know. And while it may work to select Red Hat when installing non-Red Hat Linuxes including those that are the bastard children of Red Hat, it should work as well or better when installing non-Red Hat Linuxes and Linuxes not supported in the menus by selecting "Other...". My view of the choices is this: the Linuxes that are presented in the installer have special needs or opportunities that separate them from other distros and VMware have provided solutions to support these selections. For every other distro you select "Other..." and hope it will work. With Linux distros sprouting up as fast as they are I am sure there will be some that have gone so far off the main line that they just won't work no matter which installer selection you make. I have a feeling that for any given kernel, the differences are limited to how VMware tools are handled and it would be interesting to see some clarification on that.

Now if there is absolutely no difference in the way CentOS is installed compared to Red Hat then perhaps in 1.1.2 VMware could make that distinction in the docs and menus. I don't think they will though because there is some pretty hefty risk when lumping disparate vendors under one menu.

The choice I made works so darn well I didn't explore it further. I actually went through the exercise to help build out some kickstart servers I'm creating and not because I needed CentOS. It turns out Fusion is very handy for this.

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yusufg
Contributor
Contributor

dp_fusion, woodyZ. Did you find boot time slow specifically a long delay in the beginning between the time when the kernel prints the initrd message and the next message printed which says 'kernel alive'

I wrote about it here

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/134485?tstart=0

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dp_fusion
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I haven't noticed any particular delay - it requires 90 seconds to boot from power-on, considerably less to unsuspend which is generally how I shut it down. It has been necessary on occasion to manually start vmware-tools and to run /etc/init.d/network to bring up all the bits and get a connection. Not yet sure what's doing that but it is logged during boot that the tools failed to load properly.

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gwylymaz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I installed Centos 5 as a redhat install and everything went well. I also installed the vmware tools but can't seem to get to them. They don't show up on any menus etc. Anyone have a list of things to do to get vmware tools to work with Centos?

Thanks.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

I installed Centos 5 as a redhat install and everything went well. I also installed the vmware tools but can't seem to get to them. They don't show up on any menus etc. Anyone have a list of things to do to get vmware tools to work with Centos?

Have a look at: VMware Fusion menu > Help > VMware Fusion Help > Creating Virtual Machines > Configuring VMware Tools > To configure VMware Tools properties

It states: On Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris guests, open a terminal window and enter the command:

/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox &

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gwylymaz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, that helped. I can find the tools now. Only probnow is when I try and change the screen resolution it does not change. Seems to start to but then goes back to 800x600. Anyone else see this prob?

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Only probnow is when I try and change the screen resolution it does not change. Seems to start to but then goes back to 800x600. Anyone else see this prob?

I don't know if this will help however it might be worth looking at: System > Administration > Display > Hardware tab > Monitor Type > Configure... button

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