This how-to describes how one can install and run FREESCO 0.3.8 in VMWare Player. The same image can also be installed and executed in VMWare Workstation or VMWare Server, but for the sake of clarity and because VMWare Player can be downloaded and installed for FREE I'll only describe the steps for VMWare Player.

• VMware appliance
  • VMWare Player 1.x, 2.x, VMware Server, VMware WorkStation or VMware Fusion.
• FREESCO 0.3.8 virtual image
• A work station that meets the minimum requirements to run VMWare Player.
• software to unpack a ZIP archive

What is this?
Virtual computer for VMware (made in Virtual Server v.1.0.4), with Freesco v.0.3.8 installed. Both on a virtual
floppy image and on a virtual harddisk. Note that some of the settings are a little different, but both 
contain a working router.

Note: 
'root'-account is for logging in the console (or puTTY), 'admin'-account is for logging in the 'Web Control-panel'.
Both passwords are a little down this page.

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Here's a rough write-up of what I did to make this VM:
- Make new virtual computer
- Custom
- Other Linux (Freesco-kernel is 2.0 generation)
- 64MB RAM
- add 2nd NIC
- remove CD-ROM
- HD is IDE!!!
- New IDE-harddisk 0,2GB (= 205MB)
- 'BartsBootDiskette-MSNET' mounted and boot *)
- CD to Q:\BIN
- Use 'fdisk' to make 2 partitions: primary 100MB, rest 105MB in sec./logical partition
- reboot
- format c: /u /s
- format d: /u
- copy a: c: /e (adds some usefull DOS-based tooling to the disk, such as a boot-menu)

- Copy Freesco v.0.3.8 floppy-image from the unpacked Freesco-package (www.freesco.org)
- mount the image in a running virtual Windows-computer
- Add the 'pcnet32.gz'-driver from the Freesco-package, esp. the 'modules'-folder/-ZIP-file.
  Copy it to the 'A:\router\DRV'-folder
- floppy image unmounted from Windows computer and mounted in virtual Freesco-computer

Start 'Setup' and make configuration for 
- 'Ethernet router', with
- DHCP-client on NIC-0 (which is connected to the Bridged VMnetwork)
- VMnet-2 op NIC-1. 
  My VMware Server points out that this network must be '192.168.10.0'.
  You can see this in the [Host]-menu [Virtual network Settings ...] [Host Virtual Network Mapping].
  Click the [>]-button next to the network that you're interested in and select [Subnet ...]. Don't
  change anything, just note the IP-adress (and subnetmask).
- Hence use IP-adres '192.168.10.254'.
- Switch on 'Caching DNS'
- Switch on the 'Web Control-panel', on NIC-1 and port 80.
- Switch on 'FTP-server' (also on NIC-1)
- root-password = vmware
- admin-password = vmwareweb
- no modems, but ppp-password = glabberwocky

After reboot everything seems to work.
- Freesco installed to harddisk using 'mv2hd'
- Modified BBD-bootmenu (config.sys and autoexec.bat), so 'Freesco 0.3.8' is the default, with  
  a wait of 5 sec.
- reboot, everything seems to work.

- Web Control-panel is very difficult to reach with its current settings, so I connect it to both NIC's.
  Freesco warns this is insecure, but the 'outside' NIC is still on my own LAN (i.e. not exposed to the 
  I'net), so I don't really mind.



*) BartsBootDiskette-MSNET:
- go to 'http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/makedisk/' and download de 'BFD Full package'.
- Unpack all files in an appropriate folder
- Open a Command Prompt in this folder and execute:
     bfd -i <path to new image-file> -t 144 msnet
  The option 'msnet' makes the installer add the MS Network Client (for DOS), including 
  a driver for the VMware networkcard. '-i' makes the installer write an image-file instead of
  writing everything to a fysical floppy. '-t 144' makes it a 1.44MB floppy-image, that VMware can use, 
  instead of a larger 2.88MB image-file.
- removed most NIC-drivers, since they're not used. Left only the drivers for VMware and MS Virtual PC.


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- A lot of things can be tuned/modified. For instance: 
  - Freesco can run in as little as 8MB RAM (12-16 recommended), so if you're host is running low on RAM, 
    you might want to lower this setting in VMware (VMX-file now gives 64MB).
  - You can install all kinds of software-packages. Have a look at 'http://uk.freescosoft.net/html/home.html'
  - log in as root and type 'setup' to reconfigure the router. There are literally hundreds of options.



Thanks to 'dingetje' 'Howto install FREESCO on VMWare'
(http://dingetje.homeip.net/dokuwiki/freesco/howtos/vmware) for some usefull tips.

1. Make sure your work station meets the minimum requirements of VMWare Player
2. Download and install VMWare Player
3. Download the FREESCO 0.3.8 or FREESCO 0.3.8 ZIP archive with the VMWare disk image and configuration
4. Unpack the ZIP archive
5. Locate the file Other Linux.vmx in Windows Explorer and double click it
6. VMWare Player will launch and boot FREESCO 0.3.8
7. The following changes by dingetje (step can be skipped if you like the current settings).
   Run setup and make the following changes:
   1. enable the SSH server
   2. Enable the web server for local access via HTTP port 80
   3. Change the control server port from HTTP port 80 to 82
   4. save changes and reboot
8. You should now be able to connect to the FREESCO virtual PC via:
   • SSH to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (login as 'root')
   • The Web Control panel via http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:82 (login as 'admin')

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address your FREESCO obtained via DHCP. If you'd rather use a static IP address change that in setup.

Kudos to Corn for creating the VMWare Image (see _Readme.txt), also see this thread on the FREESCO forum.