The easiest method of installing Red Hat Linux 7.0 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 7.0 via the boot floppy/ network method is supported as well.
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 7.0 installation process, be sure the virtual machine's Ethernet adapter is enabled and configured.
To install Red Hat 7.0 in a virtual machine:
Note: Due to VGA performance issues installing Red Hat 7.0 with the graphics mode installer, we highly recommend you install the operating system with the text mode installer.
Note: During the Red Hat Linux 7.0 text mode installation, a standard XFree86 version 4 server (without support for VMware SVGA or standard VGA) is installed. Do not run that X server. 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 7.0.
Note: This is the most important step. Clicking OK runs the XFree86 version 4 server, which fails, and the installer aborts.
This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Linux 7.0 guest operating system.
Note: With a Red Hat Linux 7.0 guest, you should install VMware Tools from the Linux console. Do not start X until you have installed VMware Tools.
If you want to run the standard 16-color VGA X server, skip the installation of VMware Tools and instead take the following steps.
Note: If you use the standard 16-color VGA X server, you do not have the performance advantages of the accelerated SVGA X server included in VMware Tools.
This sets the current X server to XF86_VGA16 (the XFree86 3.3.6 16-color VGA X server).
© 2002 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.