VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD 41

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @02:00PM from the what-to-wear-today dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Serenity Systems International has announced a public beta (costing 50 USD) of 'Serenity Virtual Station' running for the first time on FreeBSD. While existing VMware owners are able to run the version 2 or 3 under Linux binary compatibility and the ports of the Linux kernel modules to FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x respectively, there is no working port of the currently available VMware 4 kernel module; this may provide an alternative to those wishing to purchase a VM today." Here is the full announcement, including a link to the online store.

VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD

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Free as in Beer? (Score:4, Interesting)

by JabberWokky ( 19442 ) writes: <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @02:04PM (#10070569) Homepage Journal

Ignoring the BSD aspect, is there a Free as in Beer system to run Win98 on a *nix style OS? Similar to VMWare?
--
Evan "Haven't found one, don't need it enough to shell out money"

- Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:4, Informative)
  
  by Goyuix ( 698012 ) writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @02:14PM (#10070692) Homepage
  
  Bochs [sourceforge.net] is known to run Win95, I would imagine it would run other Windows flavors as well, perhaps with varying degrees of success.
  
  - Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:2)
    
    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) writes:
    
    bochs however is a full emulator rather than just a vm layer.
    - Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)
      
      by Goyuix ( 698012 ) writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @02:42PM (#10071008) Homepage
      
      Well, as the author was asking for a free as in beer way of running a windows environment on *nix systems, bochs satisfies his request. Particularly if he is trying to run wincode on a SPARC or PPC chip.
      
      However, in an attempt to feed the Troll, there is a project called plex86 which attempts to virtualize the hardware, as well as a forked version that is much faster and lighter but only designed to run linux variants. Obligatory links:
      
      http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86/ [nongnu.org]
      
      http://plex86.sf.net/ [sf.net]
      
  - Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)
    
    by RevAaron ( 125240 ) writes: <revaaron&hotmail,com> on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @05:05PM (#10072384) Homepage
    
    Bochs will run a bunch of Windows releases, as well as Linux/x86 and other OSes. But for the most part, it isn't really worth using it- it is slow. As hell. Or, as we say in Minnesota, slow as molasses in January. It's not bad to use Bochs for running old DOS apps- but then again, most people had a computer that was 4-33 MHz or so in the DOS days, so Bochs keeps up well there. But Windows or Linux... Painful.
    
  - Bochs isnt practical (Score:3)
    
    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) writes:
    
    Its not practical for application usage due to its speed. ( or rather lack of )
    
    Its strength is the complete emulation for testing of OS's, not for creating a 'useable' virtual environment..
- Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by dan_bethe ( 134253 ) writes: <slashdot.smuckola@org> on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @02:26PM (#10070832)
  
  Look up qemu [bellard.free.fr].
  
- Qemu (Score:5, Interesting)
  
  by ebcdic ( 39948 ) writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @03:49PM (#10071674)
  
  As far as I can tell, the only reasonably fast and complete free emulator is qemu. It's quite portable, and can emulate several processors, including x86 and PPC. You can then install the operating system of your choice.
  
  I had no problem emulating an x86 on my Mac, and installing FreeBSD.
  
Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)

by pschmied ( 5648 ) writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @03:05PM (#10071246) Homepage

Wow, this must be a first. Their website appears to be down and this was linked from the BSD section.

BSD trolls can put that in their respective pipes and smoke it.

-Peter

P.S. Did anyone download this? Does it work? Is it even remotely as good as VMWare?

- Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by Tezkah ( 771144 ) writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @03:21PM (#10071406)
  
  I thought this was a troll on *BSD, seeing how the webside was /.'d from the *BSD section...
  
  ...but it turns out that they're running Linux! [netcraft.com]
  
  - Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)
    
    by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @04:21PM (#10071953)
    
    So I guess that Netcraft has confirmed that Li... oh, never mind.
    
- One word... (Score:1)
  
  by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) writes:
  
  YEEHAAA!!!
  
  *smirk*
- Not there yet (Score:1, Informative)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  I tried the Linux version, it looks promising, but is not there yet. The worst part is that Win 2k et al are not very well supported. But maybe they have that working correctly in 2004Q4 too. Anyway, it is nice to see that it runs on FreeBSD. So, vote with your wallet if you want it to stay.
  
  Now we still need a NetBSD version ;).
Vmware on FBSD? (Score:2)

by nurb432 ( 527695 ) writes:

Ive never got that to work.. Anyone want to toss some hints out....
- - Re:Vmware on FBSD? (Score:2)
    
    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) writes:
    
    Something about needing kernel components, from the last attempt anyway..
    
    Have both Linux layer and BSD sys source installed..
    
    Latest ports via cvs...
    
    And even have a real license for vmware...
- - 5.x (Score:2)
    
    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) writes:
    
    Still on 4.x here, but with 5.3 about to appear, might give it a try instead..
Overkill (Score:1)

by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) writes:

Finally being able to read TFA, I wonder how much help it'll be in a citrix environment.
If you only use thin clients, maybe, but I doubt if you have the right environment for having to use virtual machines then. Many older applications can run on windows with a little tweaking, and if it's about using both windows and *nix/*bsd applications, plenty of ways to be able to run a client/server solution on both platforms (citrix/x11).
Voted with my $$. (Score:3, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday August 26, 2004 @12:35AM (#10075572)

I talked to the staff via phone and e-mail.

1) The product was orginally developed on FreeBSD, then ported to Linux because 'that is where the money was'
2) I told them and VMWare I'd buy a product supported on FreeBSD.

Now I get to send a photocopy of the invoice to the VMWare office....perhaps the CEO's home address and explain how I was happy to BUY thier product - but it seems VMWare didn't wanna sell me a working product.

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VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD 41

VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD More Login

VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD

Free as in Beer? (Score:4, Interesting)

Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:4, Informative)

Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:2)

Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)

Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)

Bochs isnt practical (Score:3)

Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Informative)

Qemu (Score:5, Interesting)

Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? (Score:5, Funny)

One word... (Score:1)

Not there yet (Score:1, Informative)

Vmware on FBSD? (Score:2)

Re:Vmware on FBSD? (Score:2)

5.x (Score:2)

Overkill (Score:1)

Voted with my $$. (Score:3, Interesting)

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