vmware

[brent larsen]

I tried running an edubuntu thin-client vmware virtual machine.
It consists of nothing--just 24 MB or ram. no disks or anything whatsoever.
It uses bridged networking, and it finds the edubuntu server just fine when
it boots via network.
it downloads vmlinuz and initird.img
then uncompresses the kernel, and show sme the ubuntu loading screen

loading essentail drivers...    ok
mounting root file system...     hangs
and I get dumped back into the pxelinux boot terminal

at this point, I have a dead virtual machine - I have to reset it in order
to do anything with it, and all it does is repeats the same things.

I am thinking that the vmxnet ethernet driver that runs the virtual ethernet
card on the virtual machine has a driver in the bios (the bios is made by
the same folks as the v-ethernet "card")   so it can dhcp, and tftp the
stuff from the server to get started, but it cant mount the root filesystem
using nfs, becuase it has switched over to the kernel drivers at this point,
and vmxnet is not in the list of "essential drivers" that it loaded.

im guessing at that last part.

does anyone have any alternative explaination?
is there a way we could get that vmware ethernet drivers into the essential
drivers list?
--
here is the use case:
I have an edubuntu classroom.
I have a few pcs thatare thick clients -- they have their own apps, etc.
But, I want them to be able to run a thin client session just like the
others do.  I install vmware player on those boxes, and I can swap to thin
client at a moments notice without doing anything drastic.

another use for it is for laptops who want to connect via wireless.  first,
they boot to ubuntu (or edubuntu workstation) and then, after they have
thier wireless connection going, they lauch the vmware thin client -- which
can now use the bridged network to see the edubuntu server and boot into
thin-client from there.
---
any thoughts on this?

-brent larsen
-edubuntu newbie with big dreams
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