[NTLUG:Discuss] VMWare

[Christopher Browne]

On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 22:31:07 CST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Richard Cobbe <cobbe at directlink.net>  said:
> Chris Cox wrote on 11-26-1999:
> > VMWare can directly access your CDROM, parallel and serial devices...
> > BUT...remember, that if VMWare is using them, then Linux shouldn't
> > try to do so at the same time or strange things could happen. Where
> > possible, use Samba to get to any shared devices where you want
> > both Linux and the virtual machine to access something.
> 
> I remember someone saying this several months ago at an NTLUG presentation
> on VMWare, and I remember having the same reaction then.
> 
> This limitation about accessing the CDROM etc. under VMWare & Linux at the
> same time surprises me.  One would think that Linux simply treats VMWare as
> another user process.  Therefore, contention for hardware devices between
> processes would be resolved in the same fashion as when all of the
> processes are normal Linux programs.  Granted, if VMware accesses /dev/lp*
> directly, rather than going through lpd, you can run into problems, but
> this shouldn't won't affect the CDROM.

Ah, but if VMWare grabs control at a low enough level that it is actually
aware that the CD-ROM is a CD-ROM, then that means there'll be some
contention.

If it's able to mount/dismount the CD, for instance, that requires enough
control that this may head us into "contention land."  And when Windows
processes think they need to know about something actually being a CD-ROM,
as opposed to "just another filesystem that's mounted," that directs us in
the "perhaps dangerous" direction...

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