$Id: README.txt,v 1.4.2.1 1999/06/11 02:34:28 bugnion Exp $
Copyright (C) 1998-99, VMware, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for downloading the VMware for Linux Beta.
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1. INSTALLING VMWARE FOR LINUX

 Please visit http://www.vmware.com/support/easysteps.html for help on
 getting started installing VMware.

 At the time of this release the VMware officially supported Linux host
 operating systems are --

      Caldera 1.3
      Red Hat 5.0, 5.1 5.2 and 6.0
      SuSE 6.0 and 6.1

 VMware should run on later versions of Caldera, Red Hat and SuSE,
 see http://www.vmware.com/support for latest information.
 
 VMware will run on some other Linux distributions and versions, however
 this may require some expertise to correctly install and configure
 VMware on these systems.
 
 VMware requires a Linux 2.2.x kernel on an SMP host system, and will
 fail to run without this.

 VMware absolutely requires glibc support on the host operating
 system. Errors such as "no such file or directory" when trying to run
 vmware yet the 'vmware' executable exists is a symptom of not having
 glibc support or of having incorrectly installed or damaged dynamic
 libraries.  Some Linux operating systems (including Caldera 1.3)
 do not install glibc support as standard, check the documentation for
 your distribution.

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2. GETTING HELP

 For help trouble shooting first refer to the list of
 known issues below and the latest version of this list at
 http://www.vmware.com/support/releasenotes.html.

 There is a list of troubleshooting suggestions at
 http://www.vmware.com/support/troubleshooting.html.

 VMware hosts a series of newsgroups, including discussions of
 problems, for VMware users from a news server at news.vmware.com. See
 http://www.vmware.com/support/newsgroups.html.

 Support for VMware for Linux Beta is available
 free of charge to registered beta users. Please visit
 http://www.vmware.com/support/support.html for information on VMware
 support and how to report problems with VMware for Linux Beta.

 VMware especially wants to know about fatal errors with messages
 like "NOT IMPLEMENTED" or "ASSERT".  These failures will typically
 be associated with a file coding like F(123):456, or else with an
 offset like "Assert failed at 0x987654".  If you get a message like
 "Bug F(123):456 BugNr=789" then this failure is associated with a bug
 that VMware is already aware of. In either case, please open a problem
 incident report at http://www2.vmware.com/forms/Incident_Login.cfm
 and include the log file and vmware-core core file if a core file was
 generated. The log file will either be named vmware-log or 
 <config file>.log where <config file> is the name you gave to your 
 VMware configuration.

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3. KNOWN ISSUES WITH VMWARE FOR LINUX BETA

 Please visit http://www.vmware.com/support/releasenotes.html for the 
 latest list of know problems.

 1. Unsupported guest operating systems
 2. Virtual machines within virtual machines
 3. Booting from raw disks - supported on IDE drives only
 4. Multiprocessor system support
 5. Windows NT 4.0 multiprocessor (MPS) HAL incompatibility
 6. PCMCIA/PCCard support    
 7. Supported mouse types
 8. Support for Non-Ethernet network adapters 
 9. Sound support
10. DirectSound/DirectX not supported
11. Intermittent unexpected exit during Windows 95 install
12. Windows 95 problems with AMD K6 processor based systems
13. Poor MS-DOS performance with EMM386 extended memory manager
14. CD-RW and CD-R drives not supported within a virtual machine 
15. DVD-ROM drives not supported within a virtual machine
16. Incompatibilities with certain MS-DOS CD-ROM drivers
17. Intermittent "hanging" related to CD-ROM drives
18. CD-ROM drive drawer automatic closing
19. Incorrect contents reported under MS-DOS after switching CD-ROM media
20. Multisession CD-Rs or "enhanced" audio CDs do not work properly
21. Parallel (LPT) ports device support
22. EIDE ATAPI Iomega Zip drive support
23. Imation SuperDisk LS120 floppy disk drives not supported
24. Pseudocolor (8 bit, 256 color) display issues
25. Full Screen VGA incompatibility with Linux frame-buffer console 
26. Full-screen mode screen problems with software cursors
27. DGA initialization fails when starting VMware with VMware X server
28. DirectDraw/DirectX graphics support
29. VMware Tools SVGA display driver installation problems
30. Guest OS serial (COM) and parallel port (LPT) devices

---
 
1. Unsupported guest operating systems

    The following guest operating systems are known to not work with
    the VMware Beta release --

    - Solaris 7 Intel Edition
    - Windows 2000 Professional Beta (Windows NT 5.0 Beta)
    - BeOS
    - SCO Unix and UnixWare 
    - IBM OS/2 and OS/2 Warp
    - Novell Netware Server (Netware protocol adapters for Windows 95,
      Windows 98 and Windows NT do work with VMware guest operating systems)

    VMware will provide support for both Solaris 7 Intel Edition and 
    Windows 2000 Professional Beta guest operating systems in VMware 
    release 1.0.

 2. Virtual machines within virtual machines

    A virtual machine cannot be run within a virtual machine. Attempting
    to do this may hang your system. VMware recommends you do not attempt
    to do this.

 3. Booting from raw disks - supported on IDE drives only

    Booting a virtual disk from raw devices works on IDE disks, booting
    a virtual machine from a raw SCSI disk is not supported. This
    limitation will also be present in VMware release 1.0.  For more
    information on booting a virtual machine from a raw disk partition,
    as you would do on a system already configured to dual or multi-boot
    see http://www.vmware.com/support/rawdevices.html. With VMware Beta,
    booting a virtual machine from raw devices is only recommended for
    expert users.

 4. Multiprocessor system support

    VMware will run on Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) systems, also
    technically referred to as Multi-Processor Specification (MPS)
    systems. However the environment provided within each VMware virtual
    machine is a Uni-Processor (UP) system. Multiple concurrent VMware
    virtual machines will make use of the multiple processors in a system.

    VMware requires a Linux 2.2.x kernel to run on an SMP system and
    will fail with an error message on SMP systems with 2.0 or 2.1 kernels.

 5. Windows NT 4.0 multiprocessor (MPS) HAL incompatibility

    Windows NT installed natively on a Multi-Processor Specification
    (MPS) system will not boot and run within the UP (Uni-Processor)
    environment of a VMware virtual machine. This is because during
    installation Windows NT installs a separate UP or MPS HAL (Hardware
    Abstraction Layer), depending on the hardware present. A Windows NT
    MPS HAL will not run on a UP system.

    It is possible to change a Windows NT 4.0 MPS HAL to a UP HAL,
    although this should only be attempted by very experienced Windows
    NT users. It may be easier to install a new separate copy of Windows
    NT within a virtual machine. During this installation Windows NT
    will automatically install a UP HAL.

 6. PCMCIA/PCCard support

    VMware does not provide direct support within a virtual machine
    for PCMCIA or PCCard devices, such as found on laptop and portable
    computers. Special PCMCIA or PCCard drivers or software such as card
    managers cannot be used within a VMware virtual machine. However,
    standard PCMCIA or PCCard adapters such as Ethernet and Modem cards
    should be usable within a virtual machine.

    - It should be possible to install an Ethernet PCMCIA/PCCard supported
      by the Linux host operating system. The guest operating system will 
      see a virtual AMD PCnet-II PCI Ethernet adapter regardless of what 
      PCMCIA/PCCard is installed in the actual computer.
    - It should be possible to install a modem card supported by the
      Linux host operating system that emulates a standard UART. The
      guest operating system should be able to see the modem mapped as a
      generic COM serial port.
    - Ejecting or installing a PCMCIA/PCCard used by a running virtual 
      machine may cause problems.
      
 7. Supported mouse types

    VMware supports the following mouse types.

    - PS/2
    - Microsoft serial
    - Mouse Systems
    - Logitech MouseMan serial
    - Microsoft Intellimouse PS/2 (inside the VM this acts as a 
      3-button mouse with no wheel)

    Some mice can be made to work by selecting to closest compatible
    mouse in the VMware Configuration Editor.  Some mice not on this list,
    including the Microsoft Inbus mouse, and will not work with VMware.

 8. Support for Non-Ethernet network adapters 

    VMware does not support non-Ethernet network adapter cards, 
    including token ring, FDDI, CDDI or ATM adapters, in "bridged mode".
    However VMware installed on hosts with non-Ethernet network
    adapter cards can still use the virtual network in host-only mode
    and can also use IP masquerading (or similar techniques for other
    network protocols) to connect to the non-Ethernet networks. See
    http://www.vmware.com/support/networking.html for more information.

 9. Sound support

    VMware provides basic support for Soundblaster compatible PCM
    (Pulse Code Modulation) audio and can support formats such as .wav
    and .au files. VMware does not provide support for MIDI devices,
    games joysticks or audio input devices.

    Sound may play erratically under heavy system load. If you are
    experiencing this problem, try shutting down other programs.

10. DirectSound/DirectX not supported

    VMware does not support the DirectSound capabilities of DirectX
    within a virtual machine.

11. Intermittent unexpected exit during Windows 95 install

    An intermittent problem can occur during Windows 95 installations
    in a virtual machine. Shortly after the Windows 95 Setup program is
    started, scandisk runs to completion, and when the Windows 95 Setup
    program normally starts it's graphical user interface the VM returns
    back to a MS-DOS prompt. VMware recommends you reboot the VM
    and rerun Windows 95 Setup.  You will not need to FDISK or FORMAT
    the drive again. If this problem occurs reproducibly please file an
    incident report. 

    VMware recommends following the Windows 95 installation instructions at
    http://www.vmware.com/support/technotes95.html. In particular use the
    /IS flag to skip scan disk running when running setup from the CD-ROM.

12. Windows 95 problems with AMD K6 processor based systems

    Windows 95 may not run reliably as a guest operating system on
    systems using the AMD K-6-2 processor. This problem does not occur
    with other guest operating systems including Windows 98 or Windows NT.
    Although related to a known Windows 95 problem on K-6-2 processors,
    the patch for this known problem currently prevents Windows 95 from
    booting within a VMware virtual machine.

    There are known problems in Microsoft Windows 95 that cause it to 
    fail to startup on systems that use the AMD K-6-2 processor (350MHz 
    or faster). See
    http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/k623d/win95_update_k6.html for more 
    information.

    Unfortunately at the present time, this patch has an incompatibility
    with the BIOS included with VMware, and a patched Windows 95 operating
    system will not boot in a VMware virtual machine. VMware recommends
    you do not install this patch, and that you upgrade to Windows 98
    or Windows NT 4.0 if possible.

13. Poor MS-DOS performance with EMM386 extended memory manager

    Running MS-DOS with EMM386.EXE and other extended memory managers
    may cause significant performance degradation. This will only occur
    when running MS-DOS or when running MS-DOS floppy disk based installs
    such as when installing Windows 95. If you are initially booting a
    VM with an MS-DOS or Windows 95 boot diskette with CD-ROM drivers
    make sure that EMM386.EXE (or other memory managers) are not being
    loaded. HIMEM.SYS and RAMDRIVE.SYS can be loaded and used without
    problems.

14. CD-RW and CD-R drives not supported within a virtual machine 

    CD-RW (Read Write) and CD-R (Recordable) drives should be usable within 
    a virtual machine, but only as standard CD-ROM drives . Writing to the 
    drive(s) is not supported from within the virtual machine. These drives 
    should remain fully usable from the host operating system.

    VMware will provide support for CD-RW and CD-R drives within a virtual 
    machine in future releases.

15. DVD-ROM drives not supported within a virtual machine

    DVD-ROM drives are not supported by VMware. These drives should be usable 
    as standard CD-ROM drives from within a virtual machine and usable as 
    DVD-ROM drives from the host operating system.

    VMware will provide support for CD-ROM drives within a virtual machine in 
    Future releases.

16. Incompatibilities with certain MS-DOS CD-ROM drivers

    Certain MS-DOS CD-ROM drivers do not function correctly with
    the VMware virtual IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive present in a virtual
    machine. This may cause the CD-ROM drive not to be recognizable from
    MS-DOS or may even cause VMware to crash.

    The NEC drivers on Windows 95 installation floppy diskettes appear
    to work correctly as do Mitsumi drivers.

    The Mitsumi mtmcdai.sys drivers can be found at http://www.mitsumi.com,
    under Drivers and Manuals look for ide158.exe. You will need to
    add the following modification to the config.sys and autoexec.bat
    files on your boot floppy (along with the mscdex.exe file)

     config.sys
     DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
     DOS=HIGH
     FILES=30
     rem install cd-rom driver
     DEVICE=A:\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:VMware

     Autoexec.bat
     @ECHO OFF
     PROMPT $p$g
     A:\MTM\MSCDEX.EXE /D:VMware /M:10

    VMware is working to increase the number of different CD-ROM drivers
    supported.

17. Intermittent "hanging" related to CD-ROM drives

    Virtual machines running Windows and Windows NT Guest operating
    systems can experience intermittent "hanging" or  slowdown that
    corresponds to the VMware CDROM activity LED(s) when no CD-ROM media
    is in the drive. This occurs on older Linux kernels. If the system
    is running pre 2.2.4 kernels then there should be a pop-up hint
    upon startup that your kernel does not support the Linux Uniform
    CDROM Driver. If you are experiencing intermittent hanging related
    to CD-ROM drives VMware recommends you upgrade to at least Linux
    kernel 2.2.4. This upgrade should also enable the CDROM drive to
    spin down when idle, other strange CDROM behavior will also be fixed.

    It is also possible to work around this by disabling the CD-ROM
    in the VMware Settings > Removable Devices menu. Another work
    around for this problem is to disable autoplay. For Windows 95 and
    Windows 98 go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager > CDROM
    and double-click on the CD-ROM device, under Settings uncheck the
    "Auto insert notification" check box.

18. CD-ROM drive drawer automatic closing

    On systems with pre-2.2.4 Linux kernels Microsoft Windows or 
    Windows NT guest operating systems can cause rapid automatic closing
    of a CD-ROM drawers. This can be an annoying behavior and if it
    occurs when a user is loading a CD-ROM into the drive it may damage
    the media or trap the users fingers in the drawer. Please exercise
    caution when placing media in the CD-ROM drive.

    A work around for this problem is to disable autoplay. For
    Windows 95 and Windows 98 go to Control Panel > System > Device
    Manager > CDROM and double-click on the CD-ROM device, under Settings
    uncheck the "Auto insert notification" check box.

    This problem should go away if the host is upgraded to a Linux 2.2.4
    or later kernel.

19. Incorrect contents reported under MS-DOS after switching CD-ROM media

    Switching CD-ROM media under MS-DOS may not be recognized by a
    virtual machine. Users may see the problem after the software they are
    installing prompts them to put a new CD-ROM into the drive. When the
    CD-ROM is placed in the drive, the guest operating system continues
    to read the contents of the previous CD-ROM from cache.

    This occurs on older Linux kernels and/or on systems where Linux
    cannot detect CD-ROM media changes. If the system is running pre
    2.2.4 kernels then there should be a pop-up hint upon startup that
    your kernel does not support the Linux Uniform CDROM Driver. Upgrading
    to Linux kernel 2.2.4 or later may help remedy this problem.

20. Multisession CD-Rs or "enhanced" audio CDs do not work properly

    Multisession CD-ROMs may not work correctly with VMware. VMware relies
    on the host operating system for device access and Linux does not make
    much information available about multisession CD-ROMs. It should be
    possible to read data from the CD-R, but likely not correctly from
    all CD-ROM sessions or if later sessions update earlier ones. VMware
    will print warnings on the console and in the log file: "ATAPI_CDROM:
    Multisession disc present, but only reporting one session" if you
    try to use a multisession disc.

21. Parallel (LPT) ports device support

    Virtual parallel port devices are uni-directional only. VMware does
    not provide support for bi-directional parallel ports within a virtual
    machine. Parallel port disk drives such as Iomega Jaz or Zip drives
    and some hardware licensing dongles cannot be used directly from
    within a virtual machine. However, these can continue to be used on
    the host operating system. For example parallel port disk devices
    connected to the host may contain VMware virtual disks and are often
    a convenient way of transferring virtual disk between systems.

22. EIDE ATAPI Iomega Zip drive support

    Iomega Zip drives that use an EIDE ATAPI interface cannot be used
    within a VMware VM. IDE disk drives within a VM do not support ATAPI
    (although the VM IDE CD-ROM drives do). Iomega EIDE ATAPI Zip drives
    can continue to be used on the host operating system and may contain
    VMware virtual disks.

23. Imation SuperDisk LS120 floppy disk drives not supported

    VMware does not currently support Imation SuperDisk LS120 120MB floppy
    disk drives within a virtual machine, either as standard floppy
    drives or LS120 drives. These drives can continue to be used on the
    host system but cannot used within a virtual machine. Systems that
    have only SuperDisk floppy drives will not be able to install guest
    operating systems that required booting from a floppy disk. One work
    around for this is to install guest operating systems from bootable
    CD-ROMs. Another work around is to add an additional conventional
    floppy disk drive to the computer. These drive are available from
    retailers at relatively low cost and are typically easy to install. If
    you are unsure of what you are doing please consult an experienced
    PC repair specialist.

24. Pseudocolor (8 bit, 256 color) display issues

    VMware does not recommend using a host X display that uses pseudocolor
    (8 bit, 256 color). A host X display that use pseudocolor will
    typically have problems displaying VMware in windowed mode. The
    colors displayed will be dramatically affected depending on whether
    the cursor focus is in a  VMware window or not. This is a standard
    limitation of pseudocolor X servers.

25. Full Screen VGA incompatibility with Linux frame-buffer console

    VMware has a compatibility problem with the Linux Frame-Buffer Console
    (fbcon) driver.  On systems with fbcon enabled VMware cannot use full
    screen VGA mode, such as that found when a guest operating system is
    working with standard VGA drivers. This occurs for example during and
    after a new guest operating system installation. Loading the VMware
    guest operating system SVGA drivers, included with the VMware tools
    packages should enable VMware to run in full screen SVGA mode on 
    systems with fbcon enabled.

26. Full-screen mode screen mode problems with software cursors

    A problem can occur when all the following three conditions are met -- 

    1. The VMware modified host X server is used
    2. The VM is run in full-screen mode
    3. The host X server uses software cursors

    If your graphics card supports it, enable hardware cursors via
    the XF86Config file. In the future, VMware will detect the use of
    software cursors and notify the user more clearly of this problem.

27. DGA initialization fails when starting VMware with VMware X server

    With the VMware provided host X server installed a problem can
    occur with systems that have certain types of graphics cards. VMware
    has not been able to reproduce this problem in-house. The problem
    appears to occur with cards which use S3 ViRGE chipsets. However,
    some users with this chipset don't experience problems. If
    you encounter this problem please file an incident report at
    http://www2.vmware.com/forms/Incident_Login.cfm. Please include
    information on the exact graphics card (manufacturer, model, chipset
    and memory) installed in the host, a copy of the XF86Config file
    and the version/type of X server used on the host.

28. DirectDraw/DirectX graphics support

    VMware's support for DirectX/DirectDraw is "experimental", many
    things will not work. VMware only provides limited support for 
    DirectDraw through the HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer) in DirectDraw.

    Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT's DirectDraw can
    emulate DirectX/DirectDraw support for device that does not support
    DirectDraw (such as VMware's virtual SVGA adapter). This is done in
    the HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer) within DirectDraw. This emulation
    may be slow and/or unreliable.

    A limitation of VMware's graphics environment is that the Virtual
    Machine can only support the display color depth of the host X
    server. Some DirectDraw programs assume the display can be set
    to 8 bit color and do not test for an error while trying to do
    this. Software like this will either fail in strange ways or may
    claim that there is no direct X support. If you want to experiment
    with this you might want to try setting your X server's color depth to
    8 bits (for XFree86 see the -bpp option) and retrying the application.

    VMware will be provide better DirectDraw support in future.

29. VMware Tools SVGA display driver installation problems

    Problems may occur trying to install the Windows SVGA driver included
    with VMware Tools, especially when running an existing installation
    of Windows within a virtual machine.

    A work around that should work is to run the "Add New Hardware"
    wizard from the control panel, and allow this Wizard to search for
    new hardware. At some point during this search Windows will either
    prompt for the driver and the installation should succeed -or- after
    the end of the search and a reboot of the computer it should now be
    possible to install the driver.

    See more detailed instructions on dealing with this problem at
    http://www.vmware.com/support/commonreports.html.

30. Guest OS serial (COM) and parallel port (LPT) devices

    Guest operating systems will detect and install device drivers
    for four serial (COM) ports and two parallel (LPT) ports even
    if those devices are not enabled in the VMware virtual machine
    configuration. These virtual devices do consume guest operating
    system IRQ and I/O address resources and appear from within the
    guest operating system to be present. Leaving these devices as is,
    but unconfigured in VMware, will not cause any problems. To enable a
    device shut down the guest operating system, Power Off VMware and use
    the Configuration Editor to enable the serial or parallel port device.

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