Last summer VMware released the ESXi Arm fling, a little bit of code designed to help bring ESXi to non-traditional deployments. We took a look at the fling and put together a guide on how to install the Arm fling on a Raspberry Pi. Now, VMware has punched out another update to the fling, posting the ISO for ESXi Arm fling v1.3. The update brings several new features and components to the fling, but unfortunately, the update requires a fresh install.
Last summer VMware released the ESXi Arm fling, a little bit of code designed to help bring ESXi to non-traditional deployments. We took a look at the fling and put together a guide on how to install the Arm fling on a Raspberry Pi. Now, VMware has punched out another update to the fling, posting the ISO for ESXi Arm fling v1.3. The update brings several new features and components to the fling, but unfortunately, the update requires a fresh install.
What’s new – ESXi Arm Fling v1.3
While the update does need a new install of the fling, VMware notes that if you select the “Preserve VMFS” option, existing Virtual Machines can be re-registered. As we found though, the process to install the arm fling is really simple and doesn’t take much time.
- Improved hardware compatibility (various bug fixes/enhancements)
- Add support for Experimental Ampere Altra (single socket systems only) (please see Requirements for more details)
- ACPI support for virtual machines
- NVMe and PVSCSI boot support in vEFI
- Workaround for ISO boot on some Arm servers
- Address VMM crash with newer guest OSes and Neoverse N1-based systems
- Improved guest interrupt controller virtualization
- Improved (skeletal) PMU virtualization
- Improved big endian VM support
The ESXi Arm fling is such a fun piece of code that is great for homelabbers or anyone wanting to explore ESXi on inexpensive gear. But before you dismiss the fling as a toy, keep in mind that it can do some really productive work as well. For instance, this sub $100 Raspberry Pi build can be used as a VMware vSAN witness in a two-node HCI cluster.
Engage with StorageReview
Newsletter | YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok | RSS Feed
