I just downloaded and installed the latest VMWare Server (2.0) on my Linux machine (an HP 1483w that has been blissfully freed from having to run on XP) yesterday. And I must say that I am blown away!
It's a major rework. The self-contained front end program is gone. You now manage through a web interface that connects via SSL to your own machine. The interface itself will remind you of VMWare's enterprise-class ESX Server, although not as well equipped. But you can see real-time RAM and processor usage.
The interface is much better, IMHO.
Here's another big plus: you can spawn a console session from the web interface. A window will pop up which you can resize and drag to another desktop if you like.
For me, this means no more remote desktop connections, which are plagued by sporadic sound and copy/paste functionality. The floating window has 100% of the remote desktop session's functionality, with added ease in interacting with other Linux applications.
But here's the best part: BLAZING VIRTUAL MACHINE SPEED!
Windows boots and runs as fast as it would on real hardware. I honestly can't tell any difference in performance, although actual benchmarking would probably reveal slight lagging in the virtual machines.
As much as I appreciate being able to run virtual Windows within the safe protecting arms of Linux, I had long ago accepted that performance would not compare to the real deal.
I loaded Quicken 2006, which normally could take as long as 15 seconds to fully open up. Two seconds flat, on a freshly booted machine!
The new interface also provides an enhanced management system for virtual machine system peripherals, including USB devices. It's quite different from 1.x, but a MUCH better experience.
WMWare has taken an excellent product and made it 100% better. The big (500 MB+) download comes with prebuilt virtual machines. I haven't had a chance to check them out yet, stay tuned.
Another plus: I had to download a separate installer to get the previous version to compile properly on my Ubuntu Hardy system. The new version installed itself very nicely with no help at all. CAVEAT: set up your Linux user as the admin during installation. By default, it uses root, and that will cause you problems in the Ubuntu world.
So if you're running version 1.x of VMWare on Linux, I wholeheartedly recommend that you download and install version 2. I believe you will be as impressed as I was!
