Run your OS in VMWare Player
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:06 am
Not sure if this is common knowledge but I have been using the free VMWare Player recently to run Linux but I tryed to get it to boot my OS's floppy image today and got it working no problem. My OS (AMOS - http://amos.harmonysecurity.com/) is a FAT12 1.44MB floppy image (Grub boots my kernel), but any bootable floppy image should be ok. To get VMWare Player to run your floppy image you can use these steps:
Note: If you have access to VMWare Workstation you can do all this by a simple point and click wizard included in the application, but the free player doesnt let you create your own virtual machines so you have to do all this manually.
0) Download and install VMWare Player if you dont allready have it. http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
1) You need to create a new directory to hold the config and disk image files. e.g. C:\AMOS\
2) Copy your os floppy image into this directory, e.g. C:\AMOS\AMOS.IMA
3) Create an empty .vmx file e.g. "amos.vmx" and add the following lines to that file and save it:
4) in your .vmx file change the line "floppy0.fileName = "AMOS.IMA"" to suit your floppy images file name. You should also edit the displayName. memsize = "16" gives your virtual machine 16MB of memory so change this if you want.
5) Now run VMWare Player and select your .vmx file and it will go and boot your OS
You can also double click your vmx file to run it. First time you run it you will probably get a message asking you to generate a new UUID for this configuration, this is fine, create the new UUID (you might have to restart vmware player after this).
I dont have any hard disk support yet in my OS but you can add a virtual IDE hard drive no problem, see http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000153064739/ for more info.
Also heres a copy of MINIX for VMWare: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~bs/vmware/. If you look at the config files in the download you can get a better idea of harddisk support.
Hope this is usefull to somebody.
Note: If you have access to VMWare Workstation you can do all this by a simple point and click wizard included in the application, but the free player doesnt let you create your own virtual machines so you have to do all this manually.
0) Download and install VMWare Player if you dont allready have it. http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
1) You need to create a new directory to hold the config and disk image files. e.g. C:\AMOS\
2) Copy your os floppy image into this directory, e.g. C:\AMOS\AMOS.IMA
3) Create an empty .vmx file e.g. "amos.vmx" and add the following lines to that file and save it:
Code: Select all
displayName = "AMOS"
uuid.location = "56 4d 6d bb d5 e3 d5 70-6a 11 ea e8 19 d6 0a 09"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 6d bb d5 e3 d5 70-6a 11 ea e8 19 d6 0a 09"
config.version = "7"
virtualHW.version = "3"
memsize = "16"
guestOS = "other"
floppy0.fileName = "AMOS.IMA"
floppy0.fileType = "file"
floppy0.startConnected = "TRUE"
powerType.powerOff = "hard"
powerType.powerOn = "hard"
powerType.suspend = "hard"
powerType.reset = "hard"5) Now run VMWare Player and select your .vmx file and it will go and boot your OS
You can also double click your vmx file to run it. First time you run it you will probably get a message asking you to generate a new UUID for this configuration, this is fine, create the new UUID (you might have to restart vmware player after this).I dont have any hard disk support yet in my OS but you can add a virtual IDE hard drive no problem, see http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000153064739/ for more info.
Also heres a copy of MINIX for VMWare: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~bs/vmware/. If you look at the config files in the download you can get a better idea of harddisk support.
Hope this is usefull to somebody.