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silver_shadow
New member
this probably belongs on the computer support forum (or maybe not - i'm not sure)... either way, i figured that looking at some of the stuff posted there and here, folks here will appreciate this better.
the situation is like this: i've not had much time while at home to potter around with my freebsd OS. plus for pure learning purposes, i have unlimited internet access in the office
so i needed to install freebsd at the office... obviously, here in the office, i'm stuck with windoze... so logically i needed to find a way to install freebsd within windows....
enter vmware - more specifically the free version available vmware player. so i've downloaded this and with a bit of google searching i've created my virtual freebsd OS on top of windoze xp.
there are basically 3 things you need to create your virtual OS:
1) the vmx file - this is the actual file you open to start up the vOS. it also contains configurations - including the location of the bootable iso image and the location of the OS itself.
2) vmdk file: this is the file which contains the actual vOS contents.
3) bootable iso image - the vmx file tells vmware where to look for this file to boot the vOS.
normally the vmx and vmdk files cannot be created using vmware player - they can be created in the full version. however there are work arounds (which is what i've done).
one solution is to download a precompiled vOS (vmdk file). however this doesn't allow you much freedom.
the other solution is to use a freeware tool called qemu. at a command line, you can use qemu-img to create a blank vmdk file. this is how i did it.
the vmx file can be created in notepad with the .vmx extension... there are plenty of sites to show you how to do this.
so i've got my vmx, my vmdk and my freebsd iso (downloaded from freebsd.org). now i can start creating the vOS.
i just double click on the vmx file and it starts up in vmware player. the boot iso here is in my cd drive. so it boots up the freebsd installation, i install it and now i have my vOS.
however i don't want my vOS on all the time. i want to power it down when i want to and power up when i want to without carrying my freebsd installation cd to boot each time.
so the next step is to download a freebsd boot image - i got one in .bin format. i then used magic iso trial version to convert it to an iso. then i adjusted the vmx file so it points to this 2 MB boot image. and that's it... i've got my freebsd OS ready to use whenever i want to!
the situation is like this: i've not had much time while at home to potter around with my freebsd OS. plus for pure learning purposes, i have unlimited internet access in the office
so i needed to install freebsd at the office... obviously, here in the office, i'm stuck with windoze... so logically i needed to find a way to install freebsd within windows....
enter vmware - more specifically the free version available vmware player. so i've downloaded this and with a bit of google searching i've created my virtual freebsd OS on top of windoze xp.
there are basically 3 things you need to create your virtual OS:
1) the vmx file - this is the actual file you open to start up the vOS. it also contains configurations - including the location of the bootable iso image and the location of the OS itself.
2) vmdk file: this is the file which contains the actual vOS contents.
3) bootable iso image - the vmx file tells vmware where to look for this file to boot the vOS.
normally the vmx and vmdk files cannot be created using vmware player - they can be created in the full version. however there are work arounds (which is what i've done).
one solution is to download a precompiled vOS (vmdk file). however this doesn't allow you much freedom.
the other solution is to use a freeware tool called qemu. at a command line, you can use qemu-img to create a blank vmdk file. this is how i did it.
the vmx file can be created in notepad with the .vmx extension... there are plenty of sites to show you how to do this.
so i've got my vmx, my vmdk and my freebsd iso (downloaded from freebsd.org). now i can start creating the vOS.
i just double click on the vmx file and it starts up in vmware player. the boot iso here is in my cd drive. so it boots up the freebsd installation, i install it and now i have my vOS.
however i don't want my vOS on all the time. i want to power it down when i want to and power up when i want to without carrying my freebsd installation cd to boot each time.
so the next step is to download a freebsd boot image - i got one in .bin format. i then used magic iso trial version to convert it to an iso. then i adjusted the vmx file so it points to this 2 MB boot image. and that's it... i've got my freebsd OS ready to use whenever i want to!
