OK, on the way is Fujitsu Lifebook N5010. 3.2 GHz CPU, 80 GB HDD, 16.1" SXGA+ TFT screen, DVD-RW, Atheros 802.11 a+b/g, 10/100 Ethernet, 4x USB 2.0 ports, 1x IEEE 1394. It'll have 2 GB of RAM (added after I get it since Fujitsu wants 3x as much to put 2 GB in there). It'll ship with XP Home, I think, which will last long enuf for me to use Device Manager to make note of all the installed devices and drivers - after that, its a run of DOS FDISK to wipe the drive.
So...I want to install SUSE 9.1 Professional on it, with the intent of using SUSE as a Host OS for VMWare Workstation v4.5. I'll then create Virtual Machines to run 3 different Guest OSes: Solaris 9 x86, NetWare v6.5 and probably W2K Pro (might try XP Pro - dunno). I plan to give each OS 20 GB of disk natively. I suppose I could make 3 20 GB slices and mount them under SUSE and then put the Virtual Disk for each Guest OS on its own slice, but I'm hoping to improve performance by giving them native disk storage and with 2GB, I can afford to give each OS 512 MB of RAM all to itself.
I'd love to have option of having all of them running simultaneously and able to talk on the virtualized 10/100 NIC all at the same time. Not a requirement, but the geek in me would love that.
Anyway, I've been to Linux-on-Laptops.com, specifically following the Fujitsu links to
http://www.xcgtech.com/laptux/, where the author does say he put SUSE 9.1 Pro on an N5010. However, to be charitable, he's very short on details, and those things he does mention are vague. As a result, I know it can be done, its a question of how and what are the pitfalls.
So...
1) Has anyone done this specific install?
2) What drivers and programs do I need, and where do I get them?
3) Any precautions I should take before I blow Windoze away?
4) Any known problems virtualizing the NICs to be shared among the Host OS and the Guest OSes?
5) Am I insane?
The latter question makes this a 500-pointer.
