VMware - running Ubuntu on my Windows 7

Question

I am interested in installing Ubuntu on VMware on my PC. (for learning). questions:

1. I want to know which app should I install. my guess is that I need VMware workstation. correct?

2. I thought it was free for home users but then I received a thirth day trial code in mail. Is there a better way/app ?

3. What other VM app are there? I understand red hat has one. can anyone suggest?

Answer 1

1. You can use VM Ware to do it and the Workstation edition works, sure. But isn't the unique option.

2. Workstation is trial only. The free option is VM Player, much more simple (but works for what you need).

3. I suggest you to use Virtual Box. It's open-source and very easy to use. It was developed by Sun (wich was acquired by Oracle some time ago) and have constantly updates.

I have an Ubuntu running on my Windows 7 x64 with it without problems.

Answer 2

VMware Workstation is not free. VMware player is free, but you need to already have a virtual machine image to get it going.

You may also want to try the Microsoft Virtual PC but I much prefer the VMWare products.

By the way, you'll learn 100x more by just installing Ubuntu onto the hard drive and running it as your normal OS. You can use wine and vmware (or other virtual app) to run Windows 7 inside of it. Of course that's a lot more work, but dual booting is a real option to consider.

Answer 3

VirtualBox is a free open-source program similar to VMWare. It's features are very similar to VMWare Workstation, which you have to pay for.

You could also use VMWare Player, but you can only use an image already created.

One thing that you could try is installing both Workstation and Player from VMWare, and creating an image with Workstation while your trial is still valid, and then using that image with Player way after the trial is over.

Basically, try using VirtualBox. Same features as Workstation for free.

Answer 4

You just need vmware player version. When you run it, you can create a new virtual machine. Follow the steps given by the program and then, you can install Ubuntu using the ubuntu iso image you choose to install.