VMWare Workstation raw disk with WinXP guest: Nifty trick of converting a dual-boot machine into a multi-OS VMware system.  Starts with dual boot Linux and XP; adds vmware under linux; creates an XP vm that runs off the XP partition in raw mode.  Result is much faster execution of XP, and continued ability to boot XP.  The downside is loss of snapshots and other virtual disk functions (obviously).  I wonder if VMware workstation 5 can create an unlinked clone of the XP partition, to convert it to a true virtual disk.  VMware today probably doesn't support cloning of raw disks, but if it did, it might make a more elegant p2v process -- boot, say, from a USB drive that has vmware, define a VM with a raw disk link to a partition, and clone it.  (See also VMware 4.5 docs, caveat, and support comment. Thanks to 'perigrin' in deli.cio.us)  9:39:19 AM    

Oracle-on-Linux VMware Cookbooks: Oracle offers how-to's for installation, and complete VM's, 9 or 10 GB in size, which they call the "Desktop Data Center".  9:29:28 AM