Help - run native OSX86 under Linux VMware

[BladeRunner]

I have searched this forum and Google but so far have not found the help I need. I have a well running hackintosh system running on an IBM ThinkCentre desktop. It runs dual boot OS X 10.4.10 and SuSE Linux 10.3. I have a WinXP-Home system running under Linux-VMWare-server and that runs quite well.

 

What I want to do is create an OSX86-vm for VMWare using the physical disk partition so I am able to run all three at the same time.

 

The problem is, I can't get VMware to create the definition for the physical disk partition where OSX resides. I get an error message: "Failed to load partitions for device /dev/sda Permission denied". If I chose to point to the entire disk it says the wizard could not complete - not enough permission to access the file. Either way, it won't finish creating the VM definition.

 

I was hoping someone would have some suggestions on what I might be doing wrong - or how to work around the problem. I really don't want to waste the space for another copy of OSX86 and I don't have enough hard drive space to load all the apps/tools in a virtual disk.

 

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[gorn]

Run VMWare as root

 

(from a terminal "sudo vmware")

[BladeRunner]

Run VMWare as root

 

(from a terminal "sudo vmware")

 

gorn;

 

I had tried from a terminal with sudo and it failed with some messages about "no version info".

 

Still, it was a good suggestion. I went to the desktop launcher and edited the options there. I added to run the app as root. That solved the permission problem. I have no idea what the difference is - a path spec or something I guess.

 

Now the osx86 vm is created and it actually attempts to boot - gets to the Gray Apple screen and then reboots to do it over again - endless loop. I tried to boot to single user but that fails also. So, it's back to the how-to pages to see what I missed there.

 

One thing that worries me though - SuSE masks the IDE drives (/dev/hdn) as SCSI devices (/dev/sdn) that may be causing osx86 a problem - not sure.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[~pcwiz]

Well, OS X does have problems with SCSI disks so that could be your problem. If you can somehow mount your partition as IDE, then that may work. Sorry but I don't know how to mount it as IDE as I am not a Linux expert but try sending a PM to:

 

Alessandro17

 

Alessandro is a Linux expert, especially with SUSE.

[BladeRunner]

Well, OS X does have problems with SCSI disks so that could be your problem. If you can somehow mount your partition as IDE, then that may work. Sorry but I don't know how to mount it as IDE as I am not a Linux expert but try sending a PM to:

 

Alessandro17

 

Alessandro is a Linux expert, especially with SUSE.

 

Well, some progress - but no success yet.

 

I found out how to apparently switch the vmware guest definitions from SCSI to IDE. Edit the guest.vmx file and change all the "scsi0" values to "ide0" - assuming your hard drive was identified by "scsi0". Next edit the guest.vmdk file and change the "ddb.adapterType = " value to show "ATAPI" - this must be entered in upper case.

 

Now, when you launch vmware it will identify the guest hard drive as IDE:partitioned.

 

Now I just need to learn why the guest still reboots in an endless loop. I also tried to boot from an iso image of the JAS osx 10.4.8 install dvd. It had the same problem.

[~pcwiz]

What are you mounting the image on? You may have more luck burning the ISO to DVD-R and then trying.

[BladeRunner]

What are you mounting the image on? You may have more luck burning the ISO to DVD-R and then trying.

 

Not sure what you mean by mounting the iso on. My host is SuSE Linux so I just point to the iso image and vmware mounts it.

 

Actually I tried the real DVD first. I tried with legacy emulation checked and unchecked. Both failed, although in different ways. With legacy checked vmware said the guest vm used unsupported dvd commands. With it un-checked the boot proces just appeared to hang - for over 1/2 hour or more. That's when I tried the iso image.

 

I need to go back to your guide and double check everything to see that I didn't miss anything.

[~pcwiz]

If you are mounting the ISO, you can't just do in VMware and just mount the ISO as a CD-ROM device. You have to use a 3rd party app to mount the ISO if you are mounting it. But that doesn't seem to matter as the burned copy won't work either. Yes, Double check the steps and that you modified the VMX config file properly.

[BladeRunner]

If you are mounting the ISO, you can't just do in VMware and just mount the ISO as a CD-ROM device. You have to use a 3rd party app to mount the ISO if you are mounting it. But that doesn't seem to matter as the burned copy won't work either. Yes, Double check the steps and that you modified the VMX config file properly.

 

I take you at your word - 3rd party virtual disk software is required to mount the iso image. Do you know of any that runs on Linux? The ones you link to in your guide are only for windows - unless I am missing something very basic.

[wmarsh]

Well, some progress - but no success yet.

 

I found out how to apparently switch the vmware guest definitions from SCSI to IDE. Edit the guest.vmx file and change all the "scsi0" values to "ide0" - assuming your hard drive was identified by "scsi0". Next edit the guest.vmdk file and change the "ddb.adapterType = " value to show "ATAPI" - this must be entered in upper case.

 

Now, when you launch vmware it will identify the guest hard drive as IDE:partitioned.

 

Now I just need to learn why the guest still reboots in an endless loop. I also tried to boot from an iso image of the JAS osx 10.4.8 install dvd. It had the same problem.

 

BladeRunner, are you running 64 Bit Linux, or do you have Intel Virtualization?

 

If so, I bet your problem is OSX is going into 64 bit mode in VMWare, and it won't run that way.

Try booting OSX with -v -legacy as that may work.

 

I also disagree with PCWiz. I set guest OS to "WinNT" not "Other" or "darwin"

 

Here is my guide, it addresses these issues:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=253464

 

My 10.4.8 VM runs under both Linux (SUSE 10.2) and Win (both XP and Vista), but I had to write separate vmx files to do this. VMWare is Workstation 5.5.

PM me if you want copies of vmx files.

[~pcwiz]

Yes, Windows NT DOES WORK. But the thing is, Other or Darwin works for most (Darwin is the fastest option). You really only need it to set it to Windows NT if you get ACPI related errors or in this case, the 64 bit issue. For VMX files, the same file usually works for Linux and Windows. I'm curious, what did you have to change to make it work in Linux?

 

Also, VMware Workstation 6 build 45731 is the best for OS X. Runs relatively fast, networking works, sound working partially.

[wmarsh]

Yes, Windows NT DOES WORK. But the thing is, Other or Darwin works for most (Darwin is the fastest option). You really only need it to set it to Windows NT if you get ACPI related errors or in this case, the 64 bit issue. For VMX files, the same file usually works for Linux and Windows. I'm curious, what did you have to change to make it work in Linux?

 

Also, VMware Workstation 6 build 45731 is the best for OS X. Runs relatively fast, networking works, sound working partially.

 

I use VMware 5.5 just because I haven't bothered updating it yet. It also suns fast, networking works except you need to assign manual address, and sound works with Maxxuss' kext. Updates tend to mess up unexpected things -- like my OS/2 VM which is even harder to get to work in VMware than OS X.

 

Anyway, the biggest reason the vmx files are different in Vista and Linux is the drive structure of the host is different. I boot both from 1st disk (different partitions) for both, and VMs live on 2nd disk in an NTFS partition accessed by NTFS-3g under Linux. In Windows its D:\VMware\OSX and in Linux its /WinXP/VMware/OSX. (I boot WinXP off 2nd drive).

 

As far as installing OS X in VMware, I found this too difficult since you can't mount the iso without a nonexistant 3rd party tool. So I built the VM in Windows 1st, installed OSX. Then in Linux created a new VM, but rather than creating a new virtual disk, used the one I had already installed the OSX on in Windows.

[wmarsh]

I take you at your word - 3rd party virtual disk software is required to mount the iso image. Do you know of any that runs on Linux? The ones you link to in your guide are only for windows - unless I am missing something very basic.

 

Bladerunner, I don't know why you are trying to do this. My understanding was you have a working physical partition you want to boot in VMware.

 

My machine until recently did not support physical install. So I have been running the same virtual disk install in Linux and Windows. Installing in Linux is virtually impossible due to VMware's difficulty mounting iso with HFS+, and the lack of a work around like Daemon tools in Windows. You could try my current solution of running the same VM, but doing install under Windows. But that doesn't sound like what you want to do in the 1st place.

 

Right now I am working the bugs out of physical install on an external drive. Once I get an OS X that runs everything -- right now 1 version does HDA sound another does QE -- I will move it to my internal disk.

 

I haven't figured out how to access my external drive from Linux, but I haven't tried very hard either.

 

Anyway, once I get this moved, I will try to reproduce what you are doing using a physical partition booting under VMware in Linux.

 

That being said, the biggest problem I had making my VM OSX built under Windows (32 bit) to run under Linux (64 bit) was the fact that OS X will not run in 64 bit mode in VMware. If your Linux host is 64 bit, then turning Intel Virtualization off will not keep OS X in 32 bit mode like it does under 32 bit Windows. The only way to do it was to use the -legacy boot flag either at startup or in com.apple.Boot.plist. I also do not know if the kernels past 10.4.8 still support -legacy, just because I have not tried them in VMware -- I've been trying to get a physical boot working.

 

You do know you can access your physical OSX partition directly in SUSE Linux by adding it to \etc\fstab

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...ost&p=22574

[BladeRunner]

Bladerunner, I don't know why you are trying to do this. My understanding was you have a working physical partition you want to boot in VMware.

--snip--

 

Why am I trying to do this: Well, because it's there. I actually have three partitions on the primary hard drive.

• Partition 1 is 20 GB running osx86 10.4.10 used for maintenance and testing
  
• Partition 2 is 50 GB running osx86 10.4.10 - used for normal osx86 tasks
  
• Partition 3 is extended - providing Linux swap, boot and various LVM partitions such as home, usr, var, etc.. for the remainder of the SuSE Linux 10.3 system
  

I have had very good luck with the WinXP system running on a virtual disk under VMware on SuSE Linux. So, I thought if I could use my osx86 maintenance partition to run a native osx86 under VMware, maybe I could quit re-booting the system every few hours. Besides, like I said, it was there and was a challenge.