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 SuSE Linux 8.1 in a virtual machine is to use the standard SuSE distribution CDs. The notes below describe an installation using the standard distribution CD; however, installing SuSE Linux 8.1 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: During the SuSE Linux 8.1 installation, do not install an X server. To get an accelerated SVGA X server running inside the virtual machine, install the VMware Tools package immediately after installing SuSE Linux 8.1.
This completes basic installation of the SuSE Linux 8.1 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 the X server in the guest operating system until you install VMware Tools and run the SaX2 configuration utility. See Before You Start the X Server below.
Note: When you start installing VMware Tools (by typing
./vmware-install.pl in the vmware-tools-distrib directory), the
following message appears:
Found an installed version of the VMware SVGA driver for XFree86 4. Some versions of this driver included with the XFree86 4 distributions do not work properly. Would you like to install a stable (but possibly older) version of the driver over the currently installed one?
If you plan to dual-boot the virtual machine, answer Yes to allow the driver to be installed. Answer Yes again to back up the existing video driver files and also copy the XF86Config-4.dist file to XF86Config-4.vm. The latter file is used when dual-booting the virtual machine.
If you do not intend to dual-boot the virtual machine, answer No to keep the existing driver.
After you have installed VMware Tools, but before you start the X server, as the root user, run the SaX2 configuration utility to configure your X server. At a command prompt, type SaX2 and use the wizard to configure your X server. If you intend to connect to this virtual machine with the VMware Virtual Machine Console, configure the color resolution for 65536 (16-bit) colors or less.
After you run SaX2 you may boot your SuSE Linux 8.1 virtual machine with any of the selections offered in GRUB.
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.
On some host systems, the SuSE Linux 8.1 installer attempts to use a kernel that is incompatible with the ACPI features of the virtual hardware. To work around this problem, open the virtual machine's configuration file in a text editor and add the following line:
acpi.present = FALSE
You should then be able to install and run a SuSE Linux 8.1 guest operating system.
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.