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Installing Red Hat Linux 7.1 and 7.2 into a Virtual Machine

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:

  1. Insert the Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive and power on the 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.

  2. To choose the text mode installer, type text and press Enter. If you simply press the Enter key, the installer performs a check, then switch to the text mode installer.
  3. Follow the installation steps as you would for a physical machine. Be sure to make the choices outlined in the following steps.
  4. Choose the language and keyboard, then in the Installation Type screen, choose either Server or Workstation for the installation type.

    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.

  5. Click the Initialize button and press Enter. Also note that sda appears in the message as the device name if the virtual disk in question is a SCSI disk; if the virtual disk is an IDE drive, hda appears in the message as the device name instead.
  6. Allow automatic partitioning of the disk to occur in the Automatic Partitioning screen.
  7. If your host operating system supports DHCP and is connected to a LAN, then in the Network Configuration screen, select the Use bootp/dhcp option.
  8. In the Mouse Selection screen, choose the Generic - 3 Button Mouse (PS/2) option and select the Emulate 3 Buttons? option for three-button mouse support in the virtual machine.
  9. During the configuration of the X server, select the defaults and proceed through this section as quickly as possible, as this X server gets replaced by an X server specific to your guest operating system when you install VMware Tools in this virtual machine.
  10. Select the default in the Video Card Selection screen and the installation of packages begins.
  11. After the packages finish installing, the X configurator program starts. Select the defaults to finish configuring this X server as quickly as possible, as it gets replaced by a new X server when you install VMware Tools.
  12. Continue to the Starting X screen and click the Skip button to skip testing the configuration.

    This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 guest operating system.

  13. Install VMware Tools in your virtual machine.

    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.

Known Issues

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:

  1. Power off the virtual machine and close the Workstation window. Open the virtual machine's configuration file in a text editor and add the following line:
    cdrom.minvirtualtime=100
  2. Save the file.

You should now be able to install the guest operating system.

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