VMWare cant find kernel headers even though theyre installed

[sojurn]

What if you ran a Linux distro with a 2.6.18-24 kernel on your Salix system using KVM, Xen, VB, QEMU, etc. Then inside the VM, install VMWare Player 2.5.5?...
Of course the resulting performance may not be stellar...

I don't have a powerhouse of a system. It runs VirtualBox easily (a Sempron with 2GB memory), but performance would become a factor with too much nesting, and I think you also can begin to get unpredictable behavior. You can run Dosbox within W2K in Virtualbox, a double nesting of sorts, and that works well (in addition to just running it directly in Linux), and I even have a W95 image running in Dosbox, another example of a double nesting (cuter than hell, and impressive that it can do this at all). So Dosbox at least lends itself well to this and the best way by far to run DOS programs. The problem is really the old windows programs. The virtual W2K I have runs many or even most of them, but with hiccups and its just not the same. I had trouble compiling Qemu but without hardware virtualization I don't think that is going to perform well anyway, much less Bochs. And so it seems like the two best bets for a good W9x system is to get one to perform "well enough" in a current VirtualBox or manage to get the 2.5.5 version of VMWare player working. What I have are quite old programs, not particularly demanding ones, which is why the VirtualBox route is still possible and I am working on that. But a W9x system in VB can never be as good as one in VMWare player, and so if that is possible I'd still like to try and get the 2.5.5 working.

I was thinking about trying unusual solutions myself, like using an older kernel system with VMware player just to get a W9x virtual machine, and then converting that to VirtualBox vdi format. I wonder if VB would be able to use the drivers though, or even if this is possible between versions on the same player for that matter, whether they are this portable.

Note: I just noticed that the 2.5.5 player will run in my native W2K Pro installtion of all things (its explicitly listed in the manual as a supported host). I have it installed in another partition. Naaaaah, that would never work, would it? To set up a virtual machine for W9x there and then import into my Salix VirtualBox?

How portable are virtual machines once set up?

[gapan]

I don't understand why you're still struggling with vmware. If the only thing you want is to install an old win9x system, why don't you do it directly in virtualbox? You seem to have already installed it in virtualbox too at some point, so I don't understand what you're trying to do here.

[sojurn]

I don't understand why you're still struggling with vmware. If the only thing you want is to install an old win9x system, why don't you do it directly in virtualbox? You seem to have already installed it in virtualbox too at some point, so I don't understand what you're trying to do here.

VirtualBox is not optimized for running W9x systems in general and 16-bit processes in particular, there are no guest additions for them. So performance is poor, and you are your own with drivers. A standard installation of W98SE gives you a system which is literally just crawling along. Installing a generic driver to switch to 32-bit true color improves on that considerably, but it remains sluggish on the whole, and this in very stark constrast to the virtual W2K, which just whips along. You can help W9x systems along in other ways also, but they will never really run well.

VMWare player on the other hand evidently supports any and all Windows systems, going all the way back. I say evidently because I haven't been able to install it. But from what I can tell it handles 16-bit as well as supplies its own "tools" (drivers et al) for W9x. I suspect it came earlier and at a time when to accomodate these older systems still had some priority, VirtualBox arrived a bit later on the scene is all, and there is just no interest there (so says the site).

I have VirtualBox installed in my test system, it both works well and is easy to use, so this is purely a performance issue with the W9x systems. I still have to try a W98lite system, see if that works "well enough" (possible). I could also try a custom W95 installer I made long ago. But I can run the WMWare player 2.5.5 in a W2K host system just to get a look at it, a possibility I hadn't considered before. Then compare directly.

About the motivation: This is primarily about a speciality collection of games, a very good one and which was collected over the course of ten years. Then there are sign language CDs, also W9x, and a few other things. And this seems as good a time as any to get this virtualized, a good W9x system is ideal, but at least all things working somewhere.

[sojurn]

Shador, thanks for the tip. Didn't work, but I appreciate the help.

Gapan, I agree. Doing some (more) Googling, it looks like VMware Player has issues with many other distros. It seems that after a certain kernel revision, the headers changed in a way that VMWare can't parse them any more. So presumably the headers are there where expected, just not recognized.

I'd love to use a newer version of VMWare, but as of 3.0 it requires a CPU with virtualization extensions, which mine doesn't have.

I gave up on VMWare and tried qemu. I was able to get Win98 installed in a VM, but performance is awful (which I guess is pretty normal for qemu without kvm).

An update on an old thread (I was looking at this again).

1) Wmware player 3.1.6 installs fine in 13.37 on my system even though it is supposed to require hardware virtualization (after installing kernel-source it compiled its modules without a hitch). I have installed W95 into that and it works great, is very responsive (even without the tools, much less with them). I could even do a restore in the virtual machine from an old Powerquest pqi image which was kind of a rush, made my day. And I saw a patch to getting 3.1.6 working on the 3.x kernel (for Xubuntu 12.04, but should be modifiable for Salix 14.0). This is only for 32-bit systems, for 64-bit you would use a newer wmwp.

2) I wanted to try the qemu-legacy install, it takes forever and then aborted when I ran out of disk. I could have sworn I had 2.2 GB free, could be wrong though (and only need the x86 architecture, not ALL of them...). Does the compile use lots of space for the compile and then free it afterwords?

3) Bochs still looks interesting, and if W95 in Dosbox is close to useable (and it is) there are possiblities there. Very hands on but also small and portable once you have a vm set up and working.

4) This version business with the vmdk format is drying me crazy. Bochs can create vmdk 3 and 4 (it says), but vmware has was it calls "hardware versions", the 3.1.6 supposedly uses 6 (and the 2.x versions the 3 and 4), and I am starting to wonder if they are using different naming conventions. Like if the bochs 4 is really the vmdk 6 or something. I guess the best thing is just to try it, because the vmwp 3.1.6 wasn't supposed to work on my system but that wasn't true.

5) Virtualbox is a very nice program but it simply is not good for W9x systems, not designed for them. Awful performance.

6) I think I am learning that you should believe things less and try them more (Glauben ist gut, Wissen ist...)

So anyway,the vmware player 3.1.6 DOES run in 13.37, and should be possible to patch for 14.0.