MyComputingArt

Debian on Windows with VMWare, Linux applications in Windows using X server

With this little and very simple tutorial I will explain what I did to:

install VMWare for Windows
run Debian virtual appliance
connect from Windows host to Linux guest and connect from Linux guest to Windows host
run seamless Linux applications in the Windows graphical environment using an X server

First, I downloaded and installed VMWare Server for Windows.
Then I downloaded and unzipped Debian Etch virtual appliance for VMWare.
And I loaded the unzipped file other26xlinux.vmx into VMWare Server Console: File, Open, Browse to the vmx file.
Here I raised memory settings from the default 96 MB to 512 MB (I have a total of 2 GB).
Here are network settings:

In Windows there are two new connections: VMWare Network Adapter VMNet8 (or Local Area Connection x) with fixed IP 192.168.222.1 and VMWare Network Adapter VMNet1 with fixed IP 192.168.216.1
Virtual machine ethernet setting is bridged

The Debian guest IP is 192.168.0.18 (set in /etc/network/interfaces):

iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.0.18
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.0.9

/etc/resolv.conf:
```
nameserver 192.168.0.9
```

I also have to say that my Windows host IPs are 192.168.0.16 and 192.168.0.17.
With this configuration I can to ping Windows host from Linux guest, ping Linux guest from Windows host, ping the router from Linux guest and surf the internet, and ...............see Windows host shares from Linux guest. Great!
In a first instance I installed VMWare and run the Debian guest, and with the standard configuration I got network working exactly as it is now but with this settings:

Virtual machine ethernet setting is NAT

The Debian guest IP is 192.168.222.128 (set in /etc/network/interfaces):

iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.222.128
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.222.1

Then I wanted to get Linux applications out of VMWare window, using:

Xming X server on Windows host
ssh on Linux guest
PuTTY on Windows host

Here is a very good article on Linux Gazette that explains just how to do that, and here is my article that report exactly what I did, with the only difference I connected PuTTY to 192.168.222.128.
I only have to add that I had to do a apt-get update before installing ssh with apt-get install ssh.
I found some advantages of VMWare compared to Qemu:

VMWare can manage big files splitting them in 2 GB large parts, while Qemu creates one only file, that's so subject to the host file system limits, such as the 4 GB maximum file size on FAT32 volumes
Alt+Tab works: when VMWare is focused or full screen, pressinf Alt+Tab I can switch between Gnome applications