Virtualization changes everything. Well, at least, a lot of things. It is a huge change in the area of testing in particular. Being able to snapshot a test environment, abuse it, and easily return it to some known state is enormous. However, I'm having a problem getting OS X Server running under VMWare Fusion on the new MacBook Pro. Fusion itself runs fine. I can virtualize other operating systems. However, the combination of VMWare Fusion v2.0 (build 116369), OS X Server and the new unibody MBP doesn't work as far as I can tell. But it fails in a way that doesn't look to pin the blame on Fusion.
Running the OS X Server installer under Fusion gets to the point of displaying the desktop, but then beach-balls indefinitely. Similarly, copying a working Server install from another Fusion 2.0 install (basically, any machine but the new unibody) displays the grey boot screen with spinner - again, indefinitely.
What's changed? The major architectural change on the new machines is that they no longer use an Intel chipset. They use a very nascent NVidia mainboard chipset; the likes of which has never been used in a Apple product thus far.
But shouldn't all of this be abstracted away from a virtual machine? If it were truly virtualized, it would only know what the virtual container told it about its environment. This doesn't seem to be the case here. In some respects, this unique case has benefits for people testing on OS X, as it should provide a truer experience. However, it other ways, it betrays the basics of virtualization.
There seems to be no mention of this on VMWare's support knowledge base. Looks like I have another letter to write to a company insider for support.
