From owner-freebsd-emulation Wed Aug 2 16:20:40 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org Received: from granger.mail.mindspring.net (granger.mail.mindspring.net [207.69.200.148]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76F9937B70F for ; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:20:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from vsilyaev@mindspring.com) Received: from jupiter.delta.ny.us (nyf-ny3-32.ix.netcom.com [198.211.16.160]) by granger.mail.mindspring.net (8.9.3/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA11075; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 19:20:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from vsilyaev@localhost) by jupiter.delta.ny.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) id TAA00361; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 19:20:30 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from vsilyaev) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 19:20:30 -0400 From: "Vladimir N. Silyaev" To: Robert Withrow Cc: emulation@freebsd.org Subject: Re: VMware port stability Message-ID: <20000802192030.B312@jupiter.delta.ny.us> References: <200008021223.IAA08126@pobox.engeast.BayNetworks.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <200008021223.IAA08126@pobox.engeast.BayNetworks.COM>; from bwithrow@nortelnetworks.com on Wed, Aug 02, 2000 at 08:23:57AM -0400 Sender: owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, Aug 02, 2000 at 08:23:57AM -0400, Robert Withrow wrote: [skipped] > The latest VMWare port in the ports tree (the one with the Makefile > with version 1.19) runs *fine* on 4.0 REL *with* host-only networking. Actually latest is 1.20, and it's almost same as in my page, so it doesn't support nor 4.0 REL, nor 4.1 REL. > Using NAT one can get that to look just like bridged networking, or > (as I use it) you can have the VM share your host OSs address. > > I think this is a valuable thing to support! There will be a number > of users who will want to run VMWare who will not be upgrading to > 4.n (n > 0) for some time, for whatever reason. It would be a real > shame to unnecessarily remove VMWare from the list of things they > can run. > > Now, your suggestion to just update the port to fetch the newer bits > from VMWare when they change is a reasonable one, except that it is > possible that future VMWare changes might require changes to your > OS shim layer code. Likewise there might be bug fixes or other > stuff in your shim code (vmmon) that would help 4.0 REL users if > they were made available. I don't think that VMWARE will be put something new in the Linux kernel driver. > > So I guess what I am suggesting would be best for the users is: > > 1) have just *one* port that works for all versions of FreeBSD with > v >= 4.0 Rel. Looking at the makefile it seems like this should > relatively straightforward, although the vmnet part would be a pain. From 4.0 to 4.1 was several changes in the all ethernet drivers, so it's not so easy to include support 4.0 Rel, due this reason. > > 2) Have a designated and labeled 4.0 port that would track changes > in VMWare and fix bugs in the underlying support code. Actually I have everything in CVS tree, so I can just produce any snapshot ;-). > > I know that this would make extra work for you, and that you don't have > resources (machines, time, etc) to do this all yourself. I'll volunteer > to test releases on 4.0 Rel (since we will have 4.0 machines running > here for at least the next 6 months), and help with debugging etc. I'm > guessing other users would be willing to help out also. I hope so. -- Vladimir To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-emulation" in the body of the message