So I’m trying to play around with Fedora in a VM with VMWare Workstation Player (v17.5.1) but I’m running into a problem I don’t know how to solve. I use the Fedora 39 1.5 ISO file which is the most current version that’s available for download and after installing it in the VM everything works fine. I setup the install and I can use it, still working after rebooting it. But as soon as I do sudo dnf update or update everything via the Software Center the screen of the VM goes black and I can’t use the VM anymore. No matter if I reboot it or not. When I power off the VM I can see the Fedora loading icon for a short period but that’s it.

This also happened with NixOS but not with Fedora Server. I guess it must have something to do with the DE as both distros were installed with Gnome but I don’t know how to solve it. I already tried reinstalling VMWare to no avail. I will try installing a distro with KDE to maybe rule out one cause.

Does anyone have any idea what’s going on here? I’m running VMWare on Windows 11.

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    42·
    8 months ago

    If I remember correctly, using Virtualbox itself is fine, but using the guest extensions and some other optional quality of life improvements that are needed to make Virtualbox useful are is not.

    Oracle makes money with complicated licensing agreements, but their limitations for businesses are stated in their terms somewhere. This stuff is why you need to be careful downloading the tools you use at home when you’re on the job. Just because you can download something, doesn’t mean you’re allowed to use it for free. There’s a good chance that Oracle could win if they actually decided to sue your employer.

    Every business learns to either avoid Oracle, or to go all-in on Oracle products (usually involving hiring someone with expert knowledge of Oracle license agreements to minimise cost).

    • badamsz@whemic.xyz
      5·
      8 months ago

      That was my impression as well but as far as we could tell, only the “free” product was downloaded and their sales folks essentially accused us of lying about using it for corporate use. We referred them to the lawyers. Due to this and Java licencing jumping up dramatically again for a bare handful of actual users we have since ended all of our support agreements and banned use of Oracle products. They are too great a financial threat to the business.

      VMWare by Broadcom is going to be… interesting…

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
        2·
        8 months ago

        That does sound like Oracle. How unfortunate, who would take a one-time fee of 5000 dollars over a sustained customer relationship? I’m just not Oracle enough to understand, I guess.

        Now that Broadcom is in charge, companies should probably treat VMWare like they treat any Google service: support, updates, and services can disappear at any time, with barely any warning. They’ve already killed off a significant part of their products that don’t serve large corporations.

      • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        only the “free” product was downloaded and their sales folks essentially accused us of lying about using it for corporate use

        According to Virtualbox site:

        This VirtualBox Extension Pack Personal Use and Evaluation License governs your access to and use of the VirtualBox Extension Pack. It does not apply to the VirtualBox base package and/or its source code, which are licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License “GPL”

        Extension Packs are also free to download, are you sure a pack wasn’t downloaded as well? Oracle salesmen would have no ground otherwise (Virtualbox itself is GPL 2)