NOTE:
Gearblog has morphed into Gibbsblog. All new postings, same great Gibbs. Come on over!

VMware Workstation 5 beta [virtual machine environment]

By Gearhead, NetworkWorld.com, 02/25/05

If you're a VMware shop you'll definitely want to check out the new beta release of VMware Workstation 5.

This release is exciting because it addresses one of the big irritations in dealing with virtual machines (VMs): It allows cloning of VMs and improved snapshot facilities making it much easier to track and control versioning.

So, what's in the release? There is new host OS support (SUSE Linux Pro 9.2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0, Mandrake Linux 10, and experimental support for Windows Server 2003 SP1 beta and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 beta) and new guest OS support (Windows Server 2000 Small Business, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 3.0, SUSE Linux Pro 9.2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0, Mandrake Linux 10, Novell NetWare 6.5 SP3, Novell NetWare 5.1 SP 8, Novell Linux Desktop 9, and Sun's Java Desktop System along experimental Windows Server 2003 SP1 beta, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 beta, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP1, and other various service pack updates and kernel updates).

In the performance area the new release is claimed to improve memory utilization with concurrent multiple virtual machines; better networking performance with VMware's custom network driver in the updated VMware Tools; and faster suspend/resume and snapshot operations.

There's improved and expanded USB support, command line support, the ability to record VM screen activity as an AVI file, and ... well, there's even more. Check it out and let us know if this release is as impressive as it reads.

Back to Gearblog

Comments