From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 14:23:22 -0400 From: Latchesar Ionkov To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session? Message-ID: <20001006142322.A1694@gmx.net> References: <20001006170643.81AE3199F7@mail> <200010061802.TAA13618@cthulhu.dircon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <200010061802.TAA13618@cthulhu.dircon.co.uk>; from digbyt@acm.org on Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 07:02:08PM +0100 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 1589f1ca-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 07:02:08PM +0100, Digby Tarvin said: > > Has anyone gotten Plan9 to run (heck, to even install) under a VMware > > session? > > > > I briefly lookde at this when it came up on the mailing list a while ago. > > VMware presents some 'hardware' in the virtual machine for which we have no > > drivers, e.g. the ethernet controller and the graphics chip. I believe > > the ethernet controller is a variant on the AMD controller for which we do > > have a driver, so that can probably be fixed easily. I've no idea what the > > graphics controller looks like. > > > > If I could be bothered installing NT or Linux on a system here I'd take a > > closer look. > > > > --jim > > > I have looked into this also. Unfortunately the virtual machine does not > seem to emulate any standard graphics controller except in VGA mode, > and the response I got from VMWare when I enquired was that they > consider the interface details to be proprietary. > > They seem to think that getting reasonable graphics performance > requires clever tricks that give them an edge over potential > competitors. I suspect it is not handled as a 'virtual device' > but rather handles the display by communicating requests to the > host operating system. > > Thus unless you can work with a VGA screen, you are restricted to > guest operating systems for which VMware have deemed to make > display drivers available. I have not checked, but that would > seem to indicate that the Linux driver is provided as binary > only. Does anyone know if that is really the case? Yes, they distribute binary-only X server. Lucho