Creating the needed files for VMWare Player

Using Qemu it's possible to create a VMWare Virtual Disk File. Just add a simple .vmx configuration file and the Slax-ISO is ready to be booted within a Virtual Machine using the free VM-Player. No need to use VMWare Workstation to setup this VM :)

These are the tools I used in creating and testing the Virtual Machine:

• QEmu (link)
• VMWare Player (link)
  

Building the VM files
After installing QEmu I build a virtual disk file using the following command at the DOS-commandline:
qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk slax.vmdk 100M

VMWare Player needs a configuration file in order to work. This is a simple text-file which can be created by the text-editor of choice. I created and saved as slax.vmx the following file:

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "256"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "slax.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "live-cd.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
displayName = "slax"
guestOS = "otherlinux"
nvram = "slax.nvram"

Put them all together
To get the VM up and running copy the three essential files to a single directory:

• livd-cd.iso (the Slax Live-CD iso-image);
• slax.vmdk (the VMWare virtual disk file);
• slax.vmx (the VMWare configuration file).

And that's where step 2 ends. Everything is ready for the final step: Running the Live-CD in the VMWare Player.