[RESOLVED] VMware freezing and not working when running Kali Linux Virtual Machine

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

So I looked through the above thread but couldn’t find an exact solution to my problems.

I have VMware player installed with a Kali Linux distro, but I’m having issues getting the Virtual machine to run. At first it was running great, but now every time I try to launch it it just freezes up. The software runs fine, I have plenty of ram (64GB) so I’m not over-allocating there. But there’s some kind of setting around

I’m using Windows 11 and have the latest framework drivers installed. I have the Framework 11th gen intel. Not having any issues outside of the VM itself and not getting any crashing of the software. It just won’t respond to keyboard and mouse input after running. Sometimes it’s intermittent.

Anyone have insight or suggestions as to what the cause may be?

2

I’m using VMware Workstation on Windows 11 with a 12th Gen and have had no problems.

This is most likely going to be driver and software related. Either VMware will need to push something or there are some more tweaks needed from AMD.

3

So, having looked further into it, it may be because the free version of vmware player doesn’t allow you to configure your VM with advanced settings. The hypothetical solution mentioned in the initially linked thread (side channel mitigations enabled may exhibit performance degradation (79832)) is locked behind the pro version.

4

Testing manually adding the [ulm.disableMitigations = “TRUE”] option to the VM vmx configuration file. So far tests okay. I’m going to try using the VM further and see if this is resolved

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5

My F16 will be used to run VMware Workstation on Linux for my work. I will be sure to add my experience here if I run into the same problem.

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6

I’m using a linux vm on windows 11. So it worked for a while, but runs into the same issue where the input gets ‘stuck’ then it locks up again. Hmm

7

So switched over to VirtualBox and have had no issues, it’s definitely something with the way that VMware handles it’s vms.

8

As this switch provided a path forward, marking this as resolved.

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Used it over the course of a week and have had no issues with it. Confirmed seems to be VMWare specific

10

Just libvirt/KVM is going to be the most porformant solution, and doesn’t require out of kernel bits either.

I have had Zero issues with libvirt VM’s on fedora

11

libvirt is awesome.