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Invisible wrote:
> - I like the "snapshot manager" thingy. That's really nice.
Be careful you don't turn on the snapshot and leave it for a long time.
("long time" being "more than a day".) It's writing all the changes to a
new file, and when it's time to integrate that back into the main disk (if
you want to), it takes a loooooong time if the snapshot is big. Just don't
leave it on by accident and work on stuff for a week, or you'll spend five
hours putting the changes back in the disk.
This is also good info:
http://www.luisrocha.net/2008/11/splitting-your-vmware-virtual-disk-into.html
Helpful when it comes time to start backing up this sucker.
If you're running Linux (or any other OS that's easy to zero unused
sectors), you can make disk backups really small by zeroing unused sectors,
then copying the files into a compressed directory on Windows. (I suppose
gzipping them under Linux would work just as well, for that matter.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> - I like the "snapshot manager" thingy. That's really nice.
>
> Be careful you don't turn on the snapshot and leave it for a long time.
> ("long time" being "more than a day".) It's writing all the changes to
> a new file, and when it's time to integrate that back into the main disk
> (if you want to), it takes a loooooong time if the snapshot is big.
> Just don't leave it on by accident and work on stuff for a week, or
> you'll spend five hours putting the changes back in the disk.
Mmm, OK. I'll try to remember to not do that. ;-)
What I tend to do is install an OS or install an application,
immediately take a snapshot, and then whenever I want to use the VM,
start from that snapshot. So, like, if I'm going to play around with
Office for a few hours, I'll go play. But if I then decide I want to do
something specific and make a new snapshot, I'll restore the snapshot
from just after when I installed Office, and go from there...
> This is also good info:
>
> http://www.luisrocha.net/2008/11/splitting-your-vmware-virtual-disk-into.html
Apparently there's an opion when creating the VM that asks if you want a
single disk image or multiple such.
One thing I've noticed is that VMs take a surprisingly small amount of
disk space. I mean, I give each VM an 8GB virtual disk, but I'm using
nowhere near 8GB per VM. More like 2GB. Which is still a lot, but it's
an 80GB disk that's 79% free...
> If you're running Linux (or any other OS that's easy to zero unused
> sectors), you can make disk backups really small by zeroing unused
> sectors, then copying the files into a compressed directory on Windows.
> (I suppose gzipping them under Linux would work just as well, for that
> matter.)
I was wondering if the VMtools it installs would provide a way to do
this... but if it does, I don't see one. As for compression... does
VMware not do that itself anyway? The snapshots look a *hell* of a lot
smaller than the main disk image... (Like, less than 1GB each.)
Also... apparently VMware Player can do more than, um, play VMs now? (I
just looked at what it would cost to buy myself a copy of VMware
Workstation, but it's like £150 or something!)
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Invisible wrote:
> What I tend to do is install an OS or install an application,
There's a disk mode for that, but sure, that works. If you're going to
discard the snapshot, it's not a problem.
The other thing people use snapshots for is so they can either try someth
ing
that might break things, or to make the vdisk back-up-able while it's run
ning.
> Apparently there's an opion when creating the VM that asks if you want
a
> single disk image or multiple such.
That's it.
> One thing I've noticed is that VMs take a surprisingly small amount of
> disk space. I mean, I give each VM an 8GB virtual disk, but I'm using
> nowhere near 8GB per VM. More like 2GB. Which is still a lot, but it's
> an 80GB disk that's 79% free...
Right. The problem comes when you run out of host disk space while the VM
thinks there's still a bunch left. If the VM is for playing around, then
you can worry much less about such.
You're aware that Vista and later comes with a free (but incompatible wit
h
VMWare) VM system, right? See if you have a program called "virtual PC"
around.
> I was wondering if the VMtools it installs would provide a way to do
> this... but if it does, I don't see one. As for compression... does
> VMware not do that itself anyway? The snapshots look a *hell* of a lot
> smaller than the main disk image... (Like, less than 1GB each.)
They're just not allocating the space in advance. I was talking about if
you
*do* allocate space in advance, then your *backups* could still be small.
Also helpful when you tend to unpack a 50G tarfile, do something with it,
then throw it away, leaving yourself a 50G empty vdisk file.
> Also... apparently VMware Player can do more than, um, play VMs now? (I
> just looked at what it would cost to buy myself a copy of VMware
> Workstation, but it's like £150 or something!)
It's like any other OS. You could run things on a remote machine and cont
rol
them from your desk, and stuff like that. I'm not really familiar with it
.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> scott wrote:
>
> > Dude, it's almost 2010!
>
> ...and?
>
> Where I work, nobody is using 2007 yet. We're still using 2003.
Same here at work, until about a few months ago, since the change to Vista. I`m
guessing 7 is just a matter of time, possibly just in time for an Off2010
deployment. That's sick, as we don't have any time to adjust to the
everchanging interfaces.
> (And it's not like I'm going to *pay money* to get a product I don't
> even use for my home PC.)
what?! How can you possibly write mail or SQL scripts without it? Do you want
to sound dumb without a spell checker or miss that futurist word completion when
programming?
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Invisible wrote:
>
> Oh well, today is the first time I've ever had a chance to see Office
> 2007. I guess now I understand why we're still not deploying it yet. ;-)
We have started :).
> Presumably the idea is that it looks nice with Vista?
I tend to believe Darren - O2k7 probably really *is* made for unlogical
people.
> I wonder... Is 2007 still the latest version? What's the next release
> planned to be?
AFAIK yes, 2010 should be next.
-Aero
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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> I tend to believe Darren - O2k7 probably really *is* made for unlogical
> people.
While I won't deny having said that, I certainly don't remember it. O2k7 was
designed based on actual measurements of millions of people using Office.
Most people aren't very logical. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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Darren New wrote:
> The other thing people use snapshots for is so they can either try
> something that might break things, or to make the vdisk back-up-able
> while it's running.
I'm not planning to do any "work" with a VM, just testing. Stuff like:
- What happens if I open this file with Office 2007?
- I need a Linux box to quickly do some stuff.
- What happens if I install this random untrusted program I just found
on the Internet? (But I don't want to *really* install it, or sign and
date a legally-binding record stating that I installed it...)
>> Apparently there's an opion when creating the VM that asks if you want
>> a single disk image or multiple such.
>
> That's it.
Our VMware "expert" claims that pre-allowating the HD image can result
in reduced load on the HD subsystem (obviously at the expense of more
disk space eaten).
> You're aware that Vista and later comes with a free (but incompatible
> with VMWare) VM system, right? See if you have a program called
> "virtual PC" around.
I hear that Windows 2003 Server (?) comes with a "hypervisor" which runs
on the real metal, and then 2003 itself actually runs as a
paravirtualised guest. Or something like that...
>> I was wondering if the VMtools it installs would provide a way to do
>> this... but if it does, I don't see one. As for compression... does
>> VMware not do that itself anyway? The snapshots look a *hell* of a lot
>> smaller than the main disk image... (Like, less than 1GB each.)
>
> They're just not allocating the space in advance. I was talking about if
> you *do* allocate space in advance, then your *backups* could still be
> small.
Ah, OK.
Given that the main disk image is 1.5GB but the snapshots are only 300MB
each, I figured it was doing some sort of compression.
> Also helpful when you tend to unpack a 50G tarfile, do something
> with it, then throw it away, leaving yourself a 50G empty vdisk file.
Oh, definitely. And that's why I was hoping that the VMware Tools might
include a tool to zero unused sectors. But apparently not...
Ooo, hey. Crazy idea: I could set up my VM how I want, and then boot
from the Ghost boot CD and take a Ghost image! It only copies used
sectors, and has compression built-in.
>> Also... apparently VMware Player can do more than, um, play VMs now?
>> (I just looked at what it would cost to buy myself a copy of VMware
>> Workstation, but it's like £150 or something!)
>
> It's like any other OS. You could run things on a remote machine and
> control them from your desk, and stuff like that. I'm not really
> familiar with it.
More annoyingly, to get VMware Player they demand that you register an
account using a real name, etc.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> (And it's not like I'm going to *pay money* to get a product I don't
>> even use for my home PC.)
>
> what?! How can you possibly write mail or SQL scripts without it? Do you want
> to sound dumb without a spell checker or miss that futurist word completion when
> programming?
I honestly can't actually determine whether he's serious or not...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> O2k7
> was designed based on actual measurements of millions of people using
> Office.
The "ribbon" I keep hearing people muttering about?
> Most people aren't very logical. :-)
Well DUH! They're using M$ Office aren't they?
;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> O2k7 was designed based on actual measurements of millions of people
>> using Office.
>
> The "ribbon" I keep hearing people muttering about?
Yeah. I posted a talk about it a while back. It was interesting how they
went about designing it, and why.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
much longer being almost empty than almost full.
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