[dundee] VMWare Server 2.0

[gordon dunlop]

I downloaded the new VMWare Server 2.0 and road tested it. The
download is approx. 500MB compared to the old 1.06 Server approx 100MB
(5 times as large). They had a 64-bit Linux version which I installed
on my Fedora machine (use the tar version and not the rpm version).
The interface is through a web browser (https) rather than through a
desktop interface, initially you can only log on as root, but then you
can set your VM permissions to user or group if required. My initial
feedback is that it is awesome (virtualisation competition really
hotting up as companies try to improve their product). One of the best
things was that it monitored actual virtual CPU and virtual memory
used, most recommendations for setting of virtual memory has been
minimum of 128MB for virtual box and 256MB for VMWare and Xen. I know
these settings has been a load of crap in getting OS's to run
reasonably under normal operational and application load, where my
rule of thumb has been 512MB for normal distros and 256MB for
lightweight distros (up-to-date distros) for them to run reasonably.
The virtual memory usage has proved this with Fedora 9 (350MB) &
Windows XP (450MB) at normal running. Yes I do have an old laptop that
dual boots with WinXP & Linux with 256MB of memory but it is slow,
certainly with the Win XP partition. Anyway just my personal thoughts,
I would like to hear from others who have been using VMWare Server 2.0
to find out what their views are.

Gordon