Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 22:01:26 -0400 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: "Vladimir N. Silyaev" <vsilyaev@mindspring.com>, Robert Withrow <bwithrow@nortelnetworks.com> Cc: emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: VMware port stability Message-ID: <v04210100b5ad2b9b94da@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20000801190823.A298@jupiter.delta.ny.us> References: <vns@mindspring.com> <200008011321.JAA14859@pobox.engeast.BayNetworks.COM> <20000801190823.A298@jupiter.delta.ny.us>
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At 7:08 PM -0400 8/1/00, Vladimir N. Silyaev wrote: >On Tue, Aug 01, 2000 at 09:21:33AM -0400, Robert Withrow wrote: > > Also, could you modify your port so that it issues an error > > message if it is installed on a version that it doesn't support. > > Your latest port merrily installs on 4.0-RELEASE, but it > > doesn't run on 4.0-RELEASE. > >I don't think that it doesn't run, it should run, but without >networking stuff. I am running 4.0-20000625-STABLE, and had vmware working. I noticed the port was updated with a newer version of vmware, and a number of improvements that seemed nice. So, I updated my ports tree, rebuilt vmware2, and it installed fine without any complaint. It was not until I rebooted that I got some messages about "can't load if_tap.ko" and "cannot create /compat/linux/dev/vmnet1". My previously-working vmware2 setup is now gone, apparently, because of that upgrade. I don't mind too much, because I wanted to rebuild with the 4.1-RELEASE.iso image anyway, but I hope you can understand that this would get mighty frustrating mighty fast. The result is that vmware runs, but if I try to start any previously-working virtual machine I get a new error about "could not open /dev/vmnet1", and the virtual machine just stops at that point. It sure seems like I can not run any machine which I previously had working, and I was given no helpful warning of this until it was too late. > > A final suggestion: it would be great to maintain a > > version that *does* work on 4.0-RELEASE, even if it > > doesn't support bridging. I'm sure there are other > > sites like ours that can't jump on new FreeBSD releases > > immediately. > > If you have -RELEASE just use port from /usr/ports tree > what is coming with you release. And you will be guaranteed > to have the same result as for date when release was > published, not less, not more. I understand that vmware2, by necessity, was a fast-moving target which depended on new features installed in the "stable" system. However, I think it would now be a good idea to do something to recognize that many people are actually USING the port right now, and can not update to the up-to-the-second version of 'stable' just to get some minor changes to vmware2 (such as a new bug-fix release of the base linux-based vmware from vmware.com itself). I don't know what the best suggestion would be, but almost all the other ports have a higher standard of compatibility with previous freebsd releases than you have described for vmware2. My guess is that we maybe need a "vmware2" port, and a "vmware2-devel" port. The first would hopefully remain compatible with freebsd-4.1-release at the very LEAST. It still might be updated for assorted reasons (such as a new vmware release from vmware.com), but not in ways where people trying the port for the first time have to dig up their original copy of the 4.1-release CD's. You could then have the bleeding-edge "vmware2-devel" port, where it is explicitly stated that you must be running "the absolutely most recent snapshot of 4-current" to use, and it would even have some check in it to indicate what that minimum version level is. Please note that I do very much appreciate all this work you have been doing to get vmware working so well on freebsd. In my case, I got vmware2 for linux, and then managed to buy new hardware which redhat linux seems to get confused by. So it is REALLY great for me that you've done so much to get vmware2 working as well as it does under freebsd (freebsd seems to have no trouble with my new hardware...). At the same time, it is mighty painful to have a port which may completely break without notice, and that it is somehow "my fault" for treating the vmware2 port exactly the same as I treat every other port I use in the ports collection. --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-emulation" in the body of the message
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