Hiyas,
Trying out Sculpt 23.10 in VMware Workstation (17.5.1) today, and found some initial hurdles that seem like they should get fixed. :)
When looking at options on the Sculpt download page:
https://genode.org/download/sculpt
... it seems like a choice of either a .img file, or a .ova file.
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Problem 1:
The .img file doesn't seem to work with VMware Workstation, as it just shows "GRUB" (in the top left) like its partially loading... then just hangs there.
---
Problem 2:
Trying the .OVA file instead (File -> Open -> choose the .ova file), the import process throws up a warning message that the .ova "did not pass OVF specification conformance".
(screenshot attached)
That warning can be ignored though, in which case VMware keeps going for a few seconds then throws a hard error about "Capacity mismatch for disk2.vmdk".
(screenshot for this attached as well)
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It looks like the .ova file format is just a renamed .tar file though. So untarring it works, revealing two VMware disk images (.vmdk). Manually creating a new VM (2 cpu cores, 2GB ram) and assigning those disks to it gets things working.
---
Problem 3:
VMware doesn't seem totally happy with those disk images. In disk info window (after importing) the "Current Size" for the disk is 16,777,216 TB. Very much not correct. ;)
It's also reporting the same figure for "System Free" (also very much not correct), which seems like a VMware bug to me.
(screenshot attached too)
The field instead has the correct "System Free" value when I check the disks of other VMs on my system.
---
Anyway, I thought the above might be useful to mention in case someone wants to look into them.
Regards and best wishes,
Justin Clift
Hello,
thanks for trying Sculpt OS and your findings.
VMWare products are not used by any of the core developers, so the support will be limited.
On 01.03.24 07:04, Justin Clift wrote:
Problem 1:
The .img file doesn't seem to work with VMware Workstation, as it just shows "GRUB" (in the top left) like its partially loading... then just hangs there.
For a short test I tried the VMWare player on Ubuntu 22.04. I couldn't find a way to import the raw disk image directly, so I converted it
qemu-img convert -O vmdk sculpt-23-10.img sculpt-23-10.vmdk
With the vmdk, I was able to create a configuration with "Other 64bit" OS as type. It booted, but showed no graphical output. At a second look, somehow solely 256M RAM was configured, so I increased it to 2 GB and I got a Sculpt screen.
So, in principle the image can be booted with the VMware player when in vmdk format.
Problem 2:
Trying the .OVA file instead (File -> Open -> choose the .ova file), the import process throws up a warning message that the .ova "did not pass OVF specification conformance".
(screenshot attached)
That warning can be ignored though, in which case VMware keeps going for a few seconds then throws a hard error about "Capacity mismatch for disk2.vmdk".
(screenshot for this attached as well)
It looks like the .ova file format is just a renamed .tar file though. So untarring it works, revealing two VMware disk images (.vmdk). Manually creating a new VM (2 cpu cores, 2GB ram) and assigning those disks to it gets things working.
Problem 3:
VMware doesn't seem totally happy with those disk images. In disk info window (after importing) the "Current Size" for the disk is 16,777,216 TB. Very much not correct. ;)
It's also reporting the same figure for "System Free" (also very much not correct), which seems like a VMware bug to me.
(screenshot attached too)
The field instead has the correct "System Free" value when I check the disks of other VMs on my system.
I can reproduce the Problem 1-3, but there seems no rock solid way to use Virtualbox generated ova files with VMWare. Several workarounds are posted all over the net, e.g. [0], but all seem kind of quirky. I tried also to export the ova from Virtualbox in various formats and also the type of used disks, but none of the variants are accepted by the VMWare player.
The only long term solution would be to be to export a working VM as ova from a VMWare-Workstation installation, which we don't have nor intend to have.
Long story short, yes, the ova file is just for Virtualbox.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Alex.
[0] https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Workstation-17-Pro-...
On 2024-03-01 22:04, Alexander Boettcher wrote: <snip>
VMWare products are not used by any of the core developers, so the support will be limited.
No worries at all. They're popular in some circles, maybe due to vm snapshot support, and decent DirectX support for Windows VMs.
Broadcom recently bought VMware Inc, so the desktop products now have an unknown future. :(
That being said, I can try with KVM based VMs as well. Might give that a go later to see what happens.
<snip>
For a short test I tried the VMWare player on Ubuntu 22.04. I couldn't find a way to import the raw disk image directly
File -> Open -> "Select the .vmdk file" didn't work?
so I converted it
qemu-img convert -O vmdk sculpt-23-10.img sculpt-23-10.vmdk
Thanks. Totally forgot that qemu-img existed. I'll muck around with that a bit, and see if I can create an ova that VMware Workstation is happy to use.
With the vmdk, I was able to create a configuration with "Other 64bit" OS as type. It booted, but showed no graphical output. At a second look, somehow solely 256M RAM was configured, so I increased it to 2 GB and I got a Sculpt screen.
So, in principle the image can be booted with the VMware player when in vmdk format.
Cool. :)
Something else worth mentioning is the network adapter support. In VMware Workstation it defaults to emulating an "e1000", which *sounds* like it should work. Sculpt doesn't seem to like it though, which leaves the system without a working connection.
Changing the network adapter model to "e1000e" though works, with Sculpt happily using that without further drama. The network adapter model can only be changed by manually editing the VM definition file (.vmx) in the VM directory though, as the setting isn't made visible in the VMware Workstation GUI:
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000e"
Note that this change must be done when the GUI isn't running.
<snip>
I can reproduce the Problem 1-3, but there seems no rock solid way to use Virtualbox generated ova files with VMWare. Several workarounds are posted all over the net, e.g. [0], but all seem kind of quirky. I tried also to export the ova from Virtualbox in various formats and also the type of used disks, but none of the variants are accepted by the VMWare player.
The only long term solution would be to be to export a working VM as ova from a VMWare-Workstation installation, which we don't have nor intend to have.
Thanks heaps for taking the time to try stuff out. :)
I'll see if I can generate a matching ova that works ok, then throw it online somewhere in case other people want to try it out. :)
Regards and best wishes,
Justin Clift
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Alexander Boettcher -
Justin Clift