This guest operating system is supported on the following VMware products:
Note: If you are installing a guest operating system through VMware VirtualCenter, be sure it is supported under the VMware product - ESX Server or GSX Server - on which you are running the virtual machine.
Be sure to read General Guidelines for All VMware Products as well as this guide to installing your specific guest operating system.
The easiest method of installing Red Hat Linux 7.2 in a virtual machine is to use the standard Red Hat distribution CD. The notes below describe an installation using the standard distribution CD; however, installing Red Hat Linux 7.2 via the boot floppy/network method is supported as well. If your VMware product supports it, you may also install from a PXE server.
Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created and configured a new virtual machine.
Note: You should not run the X server that is installed when you set up Red Hat Linux 7.2. Instead, to get an accelerated SVGA X server running inside the virtual machine, you should install the VMware Tools package immediately after installing Red Hat Linux 7.2.
You need to install Red Hat Linux 7.2 using the text mode installer, which you may choose when you first boot the installer. At the Red Hat Linux 7.2 CD boot prompt, you are offered the following choices:
To install or upgrade a system ... in graphical mode ...
To install or upgrade a system ... in text mode, type: text <ENTER>.
To enable expert mode, ...
Use the function keys listed below ...
To choose the text mode installer, type text followed by Enter.
A warning appears that says:
Bad partition table. The partition table on device sda is corrupted. To create new partitions, it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on the drive.
This does not mean that anything is wrong with the hard drive on your physical computer. It simply means that the virtual hard drive in your virtual machine needs to be partitioned and formatted. Click the Initialize button and press Enter. Also note that sda appears in the message as the device name if the virtual disk in question is a SCSI disk; if the virtual disk is an IDE drive, hda appears in the message as the device name instead.
This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Linux 7.2 guest operating system.
Be sure to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system. For details, see the manual for your VMware product or follow the appropriate link in the knowledge base article at www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=340.
Do not start X until you have installed VMware Tools.
VMware GSX Server: The sound device is disabled by default and must be enabled with the virtual machine control panel (VM > Settings) after the operating system has been installed. To set up the virtual machine to play sound, see Configuring Sound in the GSX Server documentation.
VMware Workstation or VMware GSX Server: On a Linux host with an XFree86 3.x X server, it is best not to run a screen saver in the guest operating system. Guest screen savers that demand a lot of processing power can cause the X server on the host to freeze.
Installation sometimes hangs at running /sbin/loader for no apparent reason. The hang is caused by a bug in early versions of the 2.4 Linux kernel. The bug has been fixed in kernel 2.4.5. Distributions based on this kernel should install without problems.
For earlier 2.4-series kernels, a workaround is available. Although the Linux kernel bug is not related to CD-ROM drives, the workaround involves changing a VMware configuration setting for the virtual DVD/CD-ROM drive.
Power off the virtual machine and close the virtual machine window. Open the virtual machine's configuration file (.vmx or .cfg file) in a text editor and add the following line:
cdrom.minvirtualtime=100
Save the file. Now you should be able to install the guest operating system as described above. After you finish installing the guest operating system, remove this setting from the configuration file, as it may have a performance impact.
VMware Workstation, VMware ACE or VMware GSX Server: VMware recommends you do not migrate a Red Hat Linux 7.2 virtual machine between hosts when one host is running on an AMD processor and the other is running on an Intel processor.
During the Red Hat Linux 7.2 installation, Red Hat Linux 7.2 chooses a kernel that is optimized for the specific processor on which it is running. The kernel may contain instructions that are only available for that processor. These instructions can have adverse effects when run on a host with the wrong type of processor.
Thus, a Red Hat Linux 7.2 virtual machine created on a host with an AMD processor may not work if migrated to a host with an Intel processor. The reverse is true; a Red Hat Linux 7.2 virtual machine created on a host with an Intel processor may not work if migrated to a host with an AMD processor.
This problem is not specific to virtual machines and would also occur on physical computers. For example, if you moved a hard drive with a Red Hat Linux 7.2 installation from an AMD machine to an Intel machine, you would experience problems trying to boot from that drive.