FreeBSD Gets Official Support As VMware ESX Guest

An anonymous reader writes "FreeBSD 4.9 has become the first non-commercial open-source operating system to be supported as a VMware ESX guest. This allows enterprise users to benefit from a powerful open-source OS with the benefit of subscription free binary updates. This also solves a number of enterprise support issues around lack of hardware vendor support and issues around using non-commercial operating systems on SAN fabrics as the SAN access is abstracted through VMware, which the SAN supplier is more likely to have certified."

Comments

How about VMWare host?

[TheLink]

Just wondering if they'd ever support FreeBSD as a host O/S (for more recent versions of vmware).

I suppose Linux will have to do for the meantime. The trouble is which linux distro? Looks like I'd have to try CentOS.

Re:How about VMWare host?

[Mr.Ned]

VMWare ESX server, the subject of this article, is a complete operating system for running multiple virtual machines through VMWare. It's based on a 2.4 version of the Linux kernel.

Re:How about VMWare host?

[Anonymous Coward]

VMware ESX uses a Linux 2.4 kernel as a 'console' although this is actually a special virtual machine, that can see the physical hardware for monitoring and managment. All the virtual machines,including the console, run on top of VMwares own (non-linux, non-gpl)microkernel. This is completly diferent to the Workstation and GSX products.

Requiem for the FUD

[AgainstFUD]

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has a secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (30 Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.