Mandrake Linux 9.2

This section contains product support, installation instructions, and known issues for the Mandrake Linux 9.2 operating system.

32-Bit Support

The following VMware products support 32-bit Mandrake Linux 9.2:

•	VMware Workstation

Mandrake Linux 9.2 – Workstation 5.0, 5.5, 5.5.1, 5.5.2, 5.5.3, 5.5.4, 5.5.5, 5.5.6, 5.5.7, 5.5.8, 5.5.9, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5, 6.5, 6.5.1, 6.5.2

Additional Support

•	SMP – 2-way experimental support on Workstation 5.5, 5.5.1, 5.5.2, 5.5.3, 5.5.4, 5.5.5, 5.5.6, 5.5.7, 5.5.8, 5.5.9, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5, 6.5, 6.5.1, 6.5.2

•	VMware ACE

Mandrake Linux 9.2 – ACE 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3, 2.0.4, 2.0.5, 2.5, 2.5.1, 2.5.2

•	VMware GSX Server

Mandrake Linux 9.2 – GSX Server 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2.1

•	VMware Server

Mandrake Linux 9.2 – VMware Server 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 1.0.6, 1.0.7, 1.0.8, 1.0.9

Additional Support

•	SMP – 2-way experimental support on VMware Server 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 1.0.6, 1.0.7, 1.0.8, 1.0.9

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 Mandrake Linux 9.2 in a virtual machine is to use the standard Mandrake Linux distribution CD. The notes below describe an installation using the standard distribution CD; however, installing Mandrake Linux 9.2 via the boot floppy/network method is supported as well. If your VMware product supports it, you can 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 Mandrake Linux 9.2 installation, you are offered a choice of XFree86 X servers. You can choose either one, but do not run that X server. Instead, to get an accelerated SVGA X server running inside the virtual machine, you should install the VMware Tools package immediately after installing Mandrake Linux 9.2.

 

Note With many Linux guest operating systems, various problems have been observed when the BusLogic virtual SCSI adapter is used with VMware virtual machines. VMware recommends that you use the LSI Logic virtual SCSI adapter with this guest operating system.

 

Note If you are installing a guest operating system through VMware VirtualCenter or vCenter Server, be sure it is supported under the VMware product—ESX Server or VMware Server—on which you are running the virtual machine.

Installation Steps

1	Insert the Mandrake Linux 9.2 CD in the CD-ROM drive.

2	Power on the virtual machine.

3	Install this operating system as you would on a physical machine.

The following steps include only those steps that are specific to installing this guest on a VMware virtual machine.

4	Click in the opening screen and press F1 to install using text mode.

5	At the command line, type text and press Enter.

6	In the DrakX Partitioning wizard found the following solutions screen, select Use free space and select Next.

Unless you have special disk requirements, let Mandrake Linux allocate the space.

7	When you reach the Package Group Selection screen, select the type of computer on which you installed your VMware product.

If you installed your VMware product on a laptop computer, make the following selections:

a	Click Advanced.

b	Select Individual package selection and select Next.

c	Scroll to numlock and deselect the asterisk and select Next.

If you do not disable numlock when you install the guest on a laptop, the number lock is always active in the guest. You cannot disable it by pressing the Num Lock key.

8	When you reach the Summary screen, select Graphical interface and select Do.

9	Make the following selections for the graphical interface:

•	A monitor for the guest

•	VMware virtual video card

•

XFree 4.3

•	The resolution and refresh rate for the guest

•	No to not test the configuration

•	No to not start X when you reboot

When you complete the graphical interface selections, the Summary screen reappears.

10	In the Summary screen, select Next .

11	Select No to not install updates to the packages.

12	Select Reboot to complete the basic installation of the Mandrake Linux 9.2 guest operating system.

This completes basic installation of the Mandrake Linux 9.2 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 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/340.

IPv6

In many Linux distributions, if IPv6 is enabled, VMware Tools cannot be configured with vmware-config-tools.pl after installation. In this case, VMware Tools is unable to set the network device correctly for the virtual machine, and displays a message similar to

Unloading pcnet32 module

unregister_netdevice: waiting for eth0 to become free

This message repeats continuously until you reboot the virtual machine. To prevent this problem in virtual machines running Linux, disable IPv6 before installing VMware Tools.

To disable IPv6 in a virtual machine running Linux

1	If the file /etc/sysconfig/network contains the line NETWORKING_IPV6=yes, change the line to NETWORKING_IPV6=no.

2	In the file /etc/modules.conf, add the following lines:

alias ipv6 off

alias net-pf-10 off

After you disable IPv6, you should be able to install and configure VMware Tools successfully.

 

Note With a Mandrake Linux 9.2 guest, you should install VMware Tools from the Linux console. Do not start X until you have installed VMware Tools.

 

Note Provided you installed the XFree 4.3 X server when you installed the guest operating system (as advised in the install steps), when you start the VMware Tools installation script (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.

 

Note As you are installing and configuring VMware Tools, the configuration program asks for the location of lspci. When that prompt appears, enter the following path: /usr/bin/lspcidrake

Known Issues

Configuration Changes Might Be Necessary for Proper Timekeeping Behavior

The default timekeeping configuration for this guest operating system might experience problems. For Linux timekeeping best practices, see the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006427.

Guest Screen Saver

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 recommends you do not migrate a Linux virtual machine between hosts when one host is running on an AMD processor and the other is running on an Intel processor.

During installation, many distributions of Linux choose a kernel that is optimized for the specific processor on which it is being installed, and some distributions install a generic kernel by default, but provide architecture-specific kernels that the user can choose to install. The kernel might 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 Linux virtual machine created on a host with an AMD processor might not work if migrated to a host with an Intel processor. The reverse is also true: a Linux virtual machine created on a host with an Intel processor might not work if migrated to a host with an AMD processor.

This problem is not specific to virtual machines and also occurs on physical computers. For example, if you move a hard drive with a Linux installation from an AMD machine to an Intel machine, you are also likely to experience problems trying to boot from that drive.