Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0

Support

This guest operating system is supported on the following VMware products:

Caution: Update 2 is not supported.

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.

General Installation Notes

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 Enterprise Linux 3.0 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 Enterprise Linux 3.0 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: Be sure the virtual machine is configured with at least 256MB of memory. If the virtual machine has less than 256MB of memory, Red Hat Enterprise Linux presents an error message as it loads certain VMware drivers.

Installation Steps

Note: Pay particular attention to the notes in step 6 about how to avoid installing an inappropriate kernel.

  1. Insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive.
  2. Power on the virtual machine to start installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0.

    You need to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 using the text mode installer, which you may choose when you first boot the installer. At the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 CD boot prompt, you are offered a number of choices, including the following:

    To install or upgrade Red Hat Linux ... in graphical mode ...
    To install or upgrade ... in text mode, type: text <ENTER>...
    ...
    Use the function keys listed below ...

    To choose the text mode installer, type text and press Enter.

  3. Follow the installation steps as you would for a physical machine. Be sure to make the choices outlined in the following steps.
  4. Choose the language and keyboard, then in the Installation Type screen, choose either Advanced Server or Custom for the installation type.
  5. In the Mouse Selection screen, choose Generic - 3 Button Mouse (PS/2) and select the Emulate 3 Buttons option for three-button mouse support in the virtual machine. If you have a wheel mouse, you may choose Generic Wheel Mouse (PS/2).
  6. VMware GSX Server only: In the Package Group Selection screen, choose Software Development and Select individual packages. In the Individual Package Selection screen, use the arrow keys to move down to System Environment/Kernel and press Enter. Be sure that kernel-smp is deselected (no asterisk should appear between the brackets). The SMP kernel is not supported in a GSX Server virtual machine. You do not need to change any other selections.
  7. Allow automatic partitioning of the disk to occur in the Automatic Partitioning screen or partition the virtual disk manually if you do not want to use the Red Hat defaults.
  8. You may see a warning that says:
    The partition table on device sda was unreadable. To create new partitions, it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on the drive.
    Would you like to initialize this 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. Select the Yes 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.
  9. VMware GSX Server: If your computer is connected to a LAN that provides DHCP support, then in the Network Configuration screen, you may select the option Use bootp/dhcp. If you prefer, you may also set the networking parameters manually.
  10. VMware ESX Server and VMware VirtualCenter: If you are using the vlance network adapter in your virtual machine and your computer is connected to a LAN that provides DHCP support, then in the Network Configuration screen, you may select the option Use bootp/dhcp. If you prefer, you may also set the networking parameters manually. If you are using the vmxnet network adapter in your virtual machine, use the network configuration tools in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 to configure your network connection after you finish installing the guest operating system.

This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 guest operating system.

VMware Tools

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 the X server in the guest operating system until you install VMware Tools.

Enabling Sound After Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0

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.

Known Issues

PAE Message During Installation

VMware Workstation: If your host computer has a processor that includes NX (no execute) technology you may get an error message during installation. The message says the guest operating system is trying to use PAE. The NX technology is present in AMD processors including Athlon64, Opteron and Sempron. It is also present in Intel EMT64-capable processors.

To avoid the problem, be sure the virtual machine is powered off, then use a text editor to edit the configuration (.vmx) file for the affected virtual machine. Add the following line to the file:

paevm="true"

You can then power on the virtual machine and install the guest operating system.

Guest Screen Saver

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.

Migration to a Different Processor

VMware GSX Server: VMware recommends you do not migrate a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 virtual machine between hosts when one host is running on an AMD processor and the other is running on an Intel processor.

During installation, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 chooses a kernel that is optimized for the specific processor on which it is running. The kernel may contain instructions that are available only on that processor. These instructions can have adverse effects when run on a host with the wrong type of processor.

Thus, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 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 also true: a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 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 Enterprise Linux 3.0 installation from an AMD machine to an Intel machine, you would experience problems trying to boot from that drive.