9fans archive / 2000 / 10 / 56 /    prev next

From: Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@gmx.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] REQ Info: Plan9 VMware Session?
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 14:23:22 -0400

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