OpenSUSE Install :: 11.2 On VMWare Server 2.0 With Windows XP Host ?

I just had one hell of an experience trying to get openSUSE 11.2 to run on VMware server 2.0 on a Windows XP host. I am posting some instructions on how I finally got things working.

1) Download the openSuse iso image (and add-on CD if needed)

2) Download and install the VMWare server

3) Before you try to start the server console, you will need to configure the web access to allow you to log on. go to press Start->Programs->VMware->VMWare web access->Configure Tomcat

4) on the logon tab check logon as: option

5) add your account there and set the password

6) Now in your web browser (I use firefox) access the console via: [url] [url]

7) Before you start to create a virtual machine, you will want to set up the server to have access to your iso's. The server will only allow VM's access to specific directories through "datastores". You can either move the iso images to what has been specified as the default datastore... or create another datastore that points to the where you have the iso's.

8) Now we can create our virtual machine. This is simple, just press the button and follow the prompts.

a) at some point it will ask about an CD-Rom, you will want to use your suse DVD iso image. Select the option and then navigate the datastore that contains the image. Once found click and continue.

b) Network interface has 3 choices:

Bridged - the virtual machine will appear on the network as any other computer. Allows the VM to host server applications. User needs to have control over the network to ensure DHCP requests are handled (or static IP is assigned).

NAT - VMWare server will manage a virtual router, the VM is then connected to this router. On this router, the hosts internet is used as the WAN. Users do not have to have control of the network, but will have to setup port forwarding in VMWare to host server applications

Host Only - This means that the virtual machine can only talk to the host. The only way to get networking is to have a proxy through the host machine. This is setup on the host independent of VMWare. Users do not need control of the network, but control over the host. I doubt you could host server applications though.

9) With the VM created we can start it up. We can open a window to it through the console tab of the VMWare server console. When I first started it, it was stuck looking for an OS once the console finally rendered the graphics. A reset, an F2 at the post and selecting the appropriate boot media for boot got the installation started.

10) Install Suse as you would any other suse installation. I added a separate partition for swap, but kept the rest on one big one. Others may still want to maintain the separation of home and root

11) ---- Important Error/Solution ----

Once the installation has completed many will notice that the mouse or keyboard does not work! This was the source of my biggest head-ache. Some may think it was a problem with VMWare tools... I tried that to fix that and found the tools were working properly.