I find virtualbox usually lags a few releases behind the latest linux kernels and/or xorg builds, so I was surprised I got it working at all. Dunno about vmware. Here's a prebuilt Fedora 14 vmware image you could try.

Actually, if you want to try oracle's version of opennotsolaris with zfs goodness, that's just out too. You may hate oracle, and with good reason, but recall opennotsolaris was also opennot under the sun regime.

 

I'm booting it into virtualbox and indeed contemplating a bare metal install too.