rPath To Offer Extra Incentive for VMware Entrants

rPath is to offer additional rewards to the winners of the $200,000.00 VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge - if, and only if the winning entries were built with rBuilder Online, can the additional prize(s) be claimed. Claiming for the rPath incentive prizes is via e-mail only.
More details are here.

VMware to launch online store - March 3rd

This is going to be good for those that simply must have a VMware pencil, travel mug, hat, or nearly anything that can have a VMware logo printed on it. I haven't got exact news as to what's going to be decking the virtual shelves.
As usual, screenshot time! Here's one of the VMware Store placeholder page (click the image to view larger):

I'm still waiting for my VMware Parasol :)

VMware Server Beta build 22009 - What will it do for me?

The upgrade was very easy, and took about 5 minutes (including uninstalling the old build, and restarting the host).
The only changes I can notice, is that a few things have been moved around in the VM Settings screens, a few new
menu items have been added (e.g. a new "Shut down guest", "Suspend after running script", "Resume and run script", "Power On and run script" and "Restart Guest" options in the VM Power menu (so mostly duplicates of pre-existing commands in that menu), and a new "Connected Users" command in the VM menu, that displays a list of usernames and IP addresses connected to VMware Server). Server's Preferences window has been reworked slightly, with some options removed, and a few tweaks, but it's mostly cosmetic. A few new options for supported guest operating systems have been added, including Sun Java Desktop, Novell Desktop Linux 9 for the Linux options, and the addition of NetWare 4 support.
In this build, the list of supported operating systems has been removed from the help files, and in addition, there's no new version of VMware Tools.
I've also noticed a slight speed increase whilst booting Windows in a VM, and strangely enough, it seems a bit more responsive than the previous build, whilst performing general tasks.

Tested! - rBuilder Online, Part 1

Not so long ago, I'd posted a link to rBuilder Online, the Linux equivalent of a Subway sandwich.
It promises to let you build a Linux distro' just the way you want it. For example, you can go as bare as "group-core" (just a bootable system with 'enough' tools & a shell - depending on how much you describe as 'enough'), or take things to the max with additional tools (group-base), developer tools (group-devel), various mixed packages (group-dist-extras), Gnome & KDE (group-gnome and group-kde, respectively), X Windows (group-xorg) - which is pretty important if you want to use the KDE & Gnome packages. There's also another package called group-netserver (you guessed it, contains networking tools and server packages).
If you're so inclined, you can also find an open source package elsewhere on the 'net (e.g. Zope, which hasn't been published on rBuilder Online).

To start putting together your free distro', you'll need to create a group.
A group name and group version are required at the minimum, but you can also add a description, and choose the packages that you want, but you can do these later.
If you decide to edit the group later, after adding or removing packages, and decide that you want to test your product, click the nice, big button on the group editor screen titled, "Cook This Group".

The basic packages that are offered upon creating your group are quite generous in content, and things like MySQL are available in the basic packages, without the hassle of sourcing and integrating everything.

There's some nice touches in rBuilder Online, like having the choice between an installation ISO, VMware VM or a raw disk image, all ready to go with your choice of packages. You can also choose if you want a pure x86 build, or for those who have it, an x86_64 build.

I decided to make an ISO, containing the following packages: group_core (required), group-base, group-devel, group-kde, group-netserver, group-xorg, and the community-created httpd and php packages.

I'll post more details in Part 2...

Expiration of VMware Server

I had been using VMware Server to virtualize my main desktop for some time, and I'd known that my particular copy was due to expire in 6 days.
But I'd found this in my inbox, which concerned me:


Nothing much, you may say. But considering this concerns software that is not only beta, but is also involved in running my entire day-to-day computing environment.

I'd downloaded the new build (22088, replacing build 20923) of the software a few hours ago, but I'm not sure about installing it. Given the hefty download size (140MB), and the concequences that may happen if the upgrade fails, I'm considering it with some trepidation.
In my opinion, the nature of this upgrade is second only to upgrading the entire OS, not knowing what would break, and not knowing if any features that I depend on will be removed.

I'll post results of the upgrade soon.

rBuilder Online

An interesting link for those that want a 'tailor-made' Linux distribution. Sign up, pick the parts, and enjoy!
It's at http://www.rpath.com/

VMware to present Virtualization Best Practices Forum

According to an e-mail from VMware I recieved today, they are to launch the Virtualization Best Practices Forum event. As usual, it's only in the US, so us unfortunate ones in the UK will have a hard time trying to attend.
The event runs from the 14th March 2006 til' 16th March 2006, and space is limited.
The details are here.

TaoSecurity: Virtualization on low-end hardware

Here's a blog posting on virtualization on low-end hardware:
TaoSecurity

Things Of Note #3

This isn't to do with virtualization, but it's something that I thought I'd mention.
Just as I'm trying to login to retrieve my mail, I get this nice juicy error page:

Things Of Note #2

VMware may be a world leader in virtualization technology, but it appears someone's having spelling trouble, as shown in this Firefox properties screenshot of the Challenge banner on their home page:

virtualization.info: VMware Challenge suggestions

Here's a link on the VMware Challenge that I've found interesting, from Alessandro Perilli's virtualization.info:
virtualization.info: VMware Challenge suggestions