title: Cross Compiling Linux Kernels and Debugging via VMware
body: <p>I'm considering doing some Linux kernel and device driver development under a vmware VM for testing ( Ubuntu 9.04 as a guest under vmware server 2.0 ) while doing the compiles on the Ubuntu 8.04 host.</p>
  
  <p>I don't want to take the performance hit of doing the compiles under the VM.</p>
  
  <p>I know that the kernel obviously doesn't link to anything outside itself so there shouldn't be any problems in that regard, but </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>are there any special gotcha's I need to watch out for when doing this?</li>
  <li>beyond still having a running computer when the kernel crashes are there any other benefits to this setup?</li>
  <li>Are there any guides to using this kind of setup?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong></p>
  
  <p>I've seen numerous references to remote debugging in VMware via Workstation 6.0 using GDB on the host.  Does anyone know if this works with any of the free versions of VMWare such as Server 2.0.</p>