The easiest method of installing Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 in a virtual machine is to use the standard Red Hat distribution CD. The notes below describe an installation using the standard distribution CD; however, installing Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 via the boot floppy/ network method is supported as well.
Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created a directory for the new virtual machine and configured it.
Note: You should not run the X server that is installed when you set up Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2. Instead, to get an accelerated SVGA X server running inside the virtual machine, you should install the VMware Tools package immediately after installing Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2.
Use the VMware Workstation Configuration Editor to verify the virtual machine's devices are set up as you expect before starting the installation. For example, if you would like networking software to be installed during the Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 installation process, be sure the virtual machine's Ethernet adapter is enabled and configured.
To install Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 in a virtual machine:
You need to install Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 using the text mode installer, which you may choose when you first boot the installer. At the Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 CD boot prompt, you are offered several choices.
A warning appears that says:
Bad partition table. The partition table on device sda is corrupted. To
create new partitions, it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on
the drive.
This does not mean that anything is wrong with the hard drive on your physical computer. It simply means that the virtual hard drive in your virtual machine needs to be partitioned and formatted.
This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 guest operating system.
This installs an X server specific to your Red Hat 7.1 or 7.2 guest operating system, as well as some other utilities. Keeping the X server that was installed with Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 causes your virtual machine's graphics performance to suffer. Do not start X until you have installed VMware Tools.
Installation sometimes hangs for no apparent reason. Because of a bug in early versions of the 2.4 Linux kernel, installation of the guest operating system may hang for no apparent reason. The bug has been fixed in kernel 2.4.5. Distributions based on this kernel should install without problems.
For earlier 2.4-series kernels, a workaround is available. Although the Linux kernel bug that causes the installation to hang is not related to CD-ROM drives, the workaround involves changing a VMware configuration setting for the virtual DVD/CD-ROM drive:
You should now be able to install the guest operating system.
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