While Linux is a great operation system, often times it’s not as easy to get things done as it is in Windows, especially if you’re used to how Windows works (or doesn’t). I found myself in a similar situation several days ago when I finally got around to installing Linux on my desktop. My two servers have been running Ubuntu for some time now, and thanks to the efforts of Colin and Lann, I have started to accumulate a decent working knowledge of the operating system. Still, sometimes I want to use Photoshop instead of GIMP or InDesign or some program that only runs in Windows. So, I followed these steps to making both systems live together peacefully using VMWare Server and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn:

First, there are some prerequisites for this:

  1. You should have a fairly speedy computer and plenty. Any virtualization software will tax your CPU and RAM. Personally, I recommend a dual-core processor, but that is by no means a requirement. As a bencmark, I have an Athlon X2 3800 and 2GB of RAM and I can hardly tell that Windows is being virtualized.
  2. You should install Linux on a separate hard drive. I have Linux installed on a 15GB hard drive I found last week, Windows was installed on another drive years ago. Remember, what we’re doing here is running Linux while keeping our existing windows installation. You don’t really need to have a separate hard drive, but it will make things much more responsive and prolong your hardware’s longevity. I have a third hard drive used for data storage.
  3. You should have some of your original install media with you. Sometimes during this process, some windows programs will become “unregistered.” For example, I have Adobe Creative Suite 3 and I had to re-register it (free) after this process because it relies on a hardware profile to stay authenticated. Since we’re changing to VMware’s virtualized hardware, we have to be conscious of programs that relied on the old setup.
  4. You should have a basic understanding of manipulating and navigating the Linux file system.
  5. Obviously, this tutorial comes caveat emptor. If you destroy your computer or its data by following this tutorial, all you will get from me is an unsympathetic “Yeah, you’ll have that.”

Great, now that we’ve got those out of the way, let’s start with our new install of Ubuntu:

  1. Let’s assume the following: You have Linux installed on /dev/hda1 and Windows installed on /dev/hdb1. This is IMPORTANT! You will have to substitute the actual locations of your installations for these devices.
  2. Your Windows installation is most likely on an NTFS partitioned drive. Ubuntu may automatically mount this drive, but it only supports read-only. However, there is a package that adds write support. Open up a terminal and run:
    sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g
  3. Unmount the Windows drive with:
    sudo umount /dev/hdb1
  4. Edit /etc/fstab and locate where your windows drive is being mounted. Change the mount type from ntfs to ntfs-3g. Also, change the options to defaults.
  5. Remount the Windows drive:
    sudo mount /dev/hdb1
  6. Install VMware:
    sudo apt-get install vmware-server
  7. Run vmware server:
    vmware
  8. Add a new virtual machine. Choose the Custom installation and configure everything appropriately. When it asks where to save the virtual server data, you can accept the default location. We will tell it more information on the next screen.
  9. Here’s the important part. When it asks whether or not to create a new virtual disk, the bottom option will say to use a current physical drive. We want that option. Select it and choose /dev/hdb and tell it to use the whole drive. Obviously, be sure to substitute the location of your own installation.
  10. At this point you should be able to boot up the virtual machine and see your familiar Windows installation.

Tips:

  1. You should either change the permissions of the mount point for your windows drive or run vmware as root (with gksu vmware) so that it can access that mount point. Otherwise, VMware will throw permissions errors.
  2. If your Linux or Windows installations are on SATA drives, then your devices will start with sd instead of hd. For example, I have a SATA hard drive located at /dev/sda.

You can leave questions or comments below.

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