Installing FreeBSD into a Virtual Machine

Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created a new virtual machine and configured it using the Virtual Machine Wizard.

When selecting installation options, be sure to install the kernel source code. It is needed during installation of VMware Tools.

VMware has not tested sound support in FreeBSD.

The Linux emulation support in FreeBSD is insufficient to run the X server provided by VMware for use on Linux systems running in a virtual machine. The VGA server distributed with FreeBSD works as expected.

The generic FreeBSD kernel works well.

Note: FreeBSD has a problem probing for the CD-ROM device wdc1. FreeBSD sends an illegal ATAPI command to the IDE controller and ignores the error status reply. This results in a delay of approximately one minute each time the system boots.

Setting the Disk Geometry for a FreeBSD SCSI Virtual Disk

If you are running a virtual machine with FreeBSD 4.3 as the guest operating system on a SCSI virtual disk larger than 2GB, the guest operating system does not boot.

It fails to boot because the virtual disk geometry is not probed correctly by FreeBSD 4.3 when you install the guest operating system. FreeBSD 4.3 installs the boot loader in the wrong location on the virtual disk. When FreeBSD tries to boot, the FreeBSD boot loader asks the BIOS for important data that is now on a different section of the virtual disk, so FreeBSD cannot boot.

To use FreeBSD 4.3 in your virtual machine, you can set the disk geometry by hand when installing FreeBSD. To set the disk geometry manually, complete these steps.

FreeBSD calculates an incorrect disk geometry before you arrive at the FDISK Partition Editor.
To set the disk geometry, press G to select the Set Drive Geometry option. A dialog box appears, containing numbers like 2055/64/32, representing the incorrect geometry in cylinders, heads and sectors per head.
To calculate the correct geometry, find the total number of sectors by multiplying the number of cylinders, heads and sectors per head together, then dividing the number of sectors by the correct number of heads and sectors per head.
To determine the correct geometry for the BusLogic compatible virtual SCSI adapter used by ESX Server, calculate the number of cylinders, which is 4,208,640 sectors divided by the product of the actual number of heads and sectors per head (255 heads times 63 sectors per head). This results in a total of 261 actual cylinders (4208640/(255 * 63) = 261, rounded down).
You can now enter the correct geometry of 261 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors per head by typing 261/255/63 in the dialog box. Then click OK and continue installing FreeBSD.
Install VMware Tools in your virtual machine.