VmWare 3 on FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE

Sean Welch welchsm at earthlink.net
Mon Nov 3 11:01:19 PST 2003


I noticed shortly before 4.9 was released that the vmware3
port was backported to 4-STABLE.  I was pretty excited about
this and gave it a shot on my new install of 4.9-RELEASE.
Everything seems to work as it does under -CURRENT except
for the video refresh.

When the virtual machine boots, I can't see the bios messages.
When the OS starts up (Win2000Pro in this case), I get a blue
background with the outline of the box containing the progress
bar in the middle.  There is nothing in it at all.  When the login
box comes up, the two entry boxes show up with a blinking 
cursor in the bottom one, but nothing else in that box.  I can
still see the blue background.  When I run the mouse over 
this area it does update -- but only very messily.  I get 
mouse cursor artifacts all over the place.  If I can find where
to type and what to click everything seems to be working; I
just can't see it!

I have option VFS_AIO in the kernel (as there isn't a kernel
module for it under 4, apparently).  I've recompiled it a few
times but no dice.  I uninstalled it and tried vmware2 and I 
do *not* have the refresh issues with it.

Does anyone else have this problem?  I don't have vmware3
under my -CURRENT install at the moment, but it didn't have
this problem a few weeks ago when it was installed.

All start up messages appear to be normal, but I'd be happy
to provide any logs or messages.

                                                                               Sean





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