Member Avatar for noshdb

I know little about linux but I need to install Cenotos 5.1 on VMWare Workstation. VMWare has a number different options as to which distro you want installed on it. But it does not have Centos. I am not sure which one to choose. They do have a few "Other Linux 2.2.x kernel", "Other Linux 2.4.x kernel", Other Linux 2.6.x kernel" etc etc. Plus they have a few of the more common distros, redhat, ubuntu etc. Can anyone suggest what I should use? Thanks

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Dani AI

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As discovered, the easiest path is to treat CentOS 5.1 as a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 guest: CentOS 5.x is the community rebuild of RHEL 5 and uses the 2.6-series kernel, so pick the Workstation profile that matches RHEL 5 (and the correct 32/64-bit architecture). If your Workstation build doesn't list RHEL 5, choose "Other Linux – 2.6.x kernel." That follows 's observation and clarifies 's point about CentOS being the free RHEL rebuild.

Practical VM settings that work well: 512MB–1GB RAM for a GUI install (256MB+ for text installs), 1 vCPU (more if your host can spare it), and a disk of 8–20GB depending on needs. Use a SCSI disk with the LSI Logic controller (RHEL/CentOS include the lsilogic driver); if the installer struggles with SCSI, switch to IDE temporarily. Point the VM CD/DVD to your CentOS ISO and enable "Connect at power on." Start with NAT for easy internet access; use bridged networking if the VM needs a LAN IP. For a 64-bit guest make sure VT-x/AMD‑V is enabled on the host.

After installation, install VMware Tools for better drivers/performance. From the VM menu choose "Install VMware Tools", then inside the guest:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cp /mnt/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz /tmp
cd /tmp
tar xzf VMwareTools-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl -d

If the Tools installer needs to compile modules, install matching kernel-devel, gcc, make, and perl before running it (use yum if network is available).

Quick troubleshooting: if the installer can’t find the CD/DVD, reattach the ISO to an IDE controller or check "Connect at power on"; if networking fails during install, finish minimal install and configure networking after boot; and if a 64-bit install fails to boot, confirm host CPU virtualization is enabled. This should get CentOS 5.1 running smoothly in VMware.

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Member Avatar for linux

2.6 kernel should work, if it has the 2.6 kernel. CentOS is closest to Redhat/Fedora, so you can go with that too.

Member Avatar for noshdb

2.6 kernel should work, if it has the 2.6 kernel. CentOS is closest to Redhat/Fedora, so you can go with that too.

Thanks, I tried redhat and that seems to be working.

Member Avatar for jbennet

yeah, centos is actually birtually identicalto redhat. Its just a free recompile - support

Member Avatar for linux

You prove my point yet again, jbennet. That's simply ridiculous.

Member Avatar for jbennet

um, no i explained the relationship

stop it with the personal attacks man

Member Avatar for linux

I'm not personally attacking you. It's just amazing. You have 11,000 posts that are all the same post as above and adding a few words that the op didn't even want.

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