[ale] scsi and VMWare

[Lisa Chiang]

For right now, vmware does not recognize scsi cdroms (or disks) except under
kernel 2.2.4 using SCSI-ATA emulation.  See #33 below.  Hope this helps.



                              Known Issues with VMware for Linux 1.0.2

                          
                      3.Intermittent hanging related to CD-ROM drives
                        If you see frequent "pausing" and slowdown that corresponds to the CD-ROM activity LEDs
                        and/or you get hints upon startup that your kernel does not support the Linux Uniform CDROM
                        Driver, then you should upgrade to at least Linux 2.2.4. The pauses should go away, the
                        CDROM drive will spin down when idle, and a lot of other quirky CDROM behavior will be fixed.
                          
                      4.Booting from raw disks - IDE drives only
                        Booting a virtual disk from raw devices works on IDE disks, booting a virtual machine from a
                        raw SCSI disk is not supported. This limitation will also be present in VMware release 1.0. For
                        more information on booting a virtual machine from a raw disk partition, as you would do on a
                        system already configured to dual or multi-boot see here
 
                      22.CD-ROM drive drawer automatic closing
                        VMware can cause the CD-ROM drawer to close rapidly and automatically. This behavior can
                        be annoying, and if it occurs when you are loading a CD-ROM into the drive, it may cause the
                        media or user´s fingers to become trapped in the drawer. Please exercise caution when you are
                        placing media in the CD-ROM drive.
                        Note: This problem should go away if you upgrade the host to at least a 2.2.4 kernel.
                           
                      33.Failed to Configure IDEx:y (CD-ROM or CD-R Device).
                        It appears that the driver Linux uses for SCSI-ATA Emulation of CD-R (and _not_ CD-ROM)
                        drives is at least slightly erratic and doesn't behave consistently between CD-R and CD-ROM
                        drives.  That said, CD-R drives and CDROM drives have both been tested to work fine with
                        SCSI-ATA Emulation under the newer 2.2.x kernels (we haven't tested any kernels earlier than
                        2.2.3 however, and anyone using a CD-ROM should upgrade to at least 2.2.4 if at all possible
                        because of enhancements to the Linux CD-ROM drivers).
--
Lisa Chiang
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P. O. Box 2008, MS 6004
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6004
Phone: 423-574-5699
Pager: 423-417-5538