[clug] [on topic] vmware problem

Daniel Pittman daniel at rimspace.net
Thu Aug 26 17:43:43 MDT 2010


Eyal Lebedinsky <eyal at eyal.emu.id.au> writes:

> Not having a windows desktop, and needing one for some situations, I keep a
> VM for those rare cases.  I use vmware server 2.0.2, and as of recent the
> console stopped working.  It does not even start, and it seems to be a long
> known issue with firefox 3.6 (which Mozilla seems uninterested in fixing).

Don't you mean VMWare, who produce the closed-source extension?  They were
also uninterested in supporting a whole bunch of other stuff; I still don't
know why they didn't just bundle prism with the code and call it a
"stand-alone" application.

I am assuming you are also using the stock VMWare binary-only kernel modules
here, and not any of the third party patches intended to support things that
shipped after the specific VMWare release — or that you have already
investigated with that third party to make sure this isn't a known
incompatibility between their patches, the binary blobs, and the kernel.

[...]

> The solution for me is to launch the remote server directly, I use:
> [...]
> which brings up a console just fine, except that the keyboard goes crazy at
> this point. Not just in the VM, but on the host system itself.

That seems very strange.  My next step in debugging it would be either to
trace the X11 interactions of the client software, or to connect via the
network and poke around the XKB settings.  xev(1) might also be instructive,
to work out what layer is getting the mapping wrong.

My first guess would be that it is somehow programming the keyboard map
incorrectly on the host or something like that, since VMWare *should* be
protecting your physical keyboard controller from direct twiddling.

So, about the only option left is that their binary VNC client is doing the
wrong thing to X and all.

[...]

> Any suggestions?

Other than those paths of investigation, two:

The first is the obvious: since you are using the VMWare software, go talk to
your vendor and get support from them.  Most of the components can only be
fixed, and in many cases, understood by them — so their forums, and bug
tracking system, are *much* more likely to have answers than a random Linux
forum.


Two, chose a virtualization solution that is FOSS, where we can give you much
better support.  (Plus, typically, you can use the FOSS client of your choice
to access it.)

Given Fedora my advice would be virt-manager, libvirt, and KVM, but tastes
vary there.  I wouldn't, personally, prefer to swap one non-free solution for
another.

FWIW, Windows runs acceptably inside that environment when I have tested it,
and there are both free and binary-only paravirtualized device drivers
available for network, disk, and possibly graphics for Windows under KVM these
days, so that advantage of the closed tools is vanishing.

Regards,
        Daniel
-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
               ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons


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