The Book of VMware: The Complete Guide to VMware Workstation [Paperback]

There's only so much you can do by multitasking applications. Frequently, you just need another computer for testing software, trying out network configurations, or doing any of a dozen things that engineers and administrators need to do. VMware allows you to run several virtual machines on one physical computer, each completely independent of the others at all levels and each potentially running a different operating system. The Book of VMware provides full documentation on running both versions of this tremendously useful utility--Windows and Linux--and goes into great detail on how it goes about dividing the resources of a single physical box. If you want to know how the Linux version of VMware manages the filesystems of a Windows guest operating system, or how USB devices are shared across multiple virtual machines, this book is the single best resource for you.

Brian Ward's prose style is pretty dry; you won't read this one straight through, and it's unlikely you'll even read a chapter from front to back unless you're encountering a problem and want to know everything potentially related to it. More likely, you'll use the index to locate Ward's coverage of FreeBSD disk-lettering schemes (or whatever) and read the several pages of text and illustrations he devotes to the matter. This is a specialised reference book, and a very good one. --David Wall

Topics covered: all aspects of VMware 3.0 Workstation (from VMware Corporation) for both the Windows and Linux versions of the software. Coverage of the two variants is approximately equal. In addition to explaining how to install both kinds of VMware, the author shows how guest systems behave--in terms of disk usage, driver compatibility, device sharing, networking and all other major systems--in both environments. There's great coverage of FreeBSD as a guest system.

VMware software allows users to run multiple operating systems (and their applications) simultaneously on a single computer. This comprehensive guide to installing and running VMware, developed with the help of VMware, Inc., includes sections on device emulation; configuring the guest operating system; networking and file transfers; and troubleshooting common questions and answers.