I fought with an old (old old) version of VMWare that I had purchased on ebay and had been using under my old version of Ubuntu. Now, following all the instructions I could find, I couldn’t get it to install and run correctly. I did all the incantations, sacrificed all the chickens, and thought I had a full moon (or was that a new moon?). It looked to set up properly, but then wouldn’t run, complaining about a configuration problem. After I ran through the configuration process twice in a row, without any appreciably better results, I decided to quit (I’m not totally recursive, man).

So I downloaded the new version of VMWare (they have a 30-day trial period), installed it fantastically easily, and it’s up and running. I can dial in to work, and read my email messages, and it all just works. Aside from the payment coming due in a month, I’m a happy boy.

I thought about trying Xen, since they’re supposed to be able to import VMWare virtual machine images – but then I saw the “quick and easy” instructions. No, thanks. I know that some of it is involved in setting up the template so everything else can copy from it, but even without that, it’s messy. And I also don’t have a 64-bit CPU.

Virtual Iron is no better. I need to have 2G of memory, which I don’t.

So I’m going to end up paying the piper. At least I’ll end up with an official, licensed product that I can get updates for, which would be a good thing.

All in all, a real good Saturday.