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brianld
Contributor
Contributor

VMware tools on Ubuntu 8.10 release not working

I downloaded Ubuntu 8.10 release and installed in a new VM using mostly standard options (single CPU, 1gb RAM, 10gb disk, etc.). VMware Tools installs OK with exception of vmsock. Issue I am having is that the display does not resize automatically either within a VM window or when switching to full-screen mode. I've tried removing & re-installing the tools, running the config again, etc. Nothing seems to help. I do have both autofit guest and autofit window turned on.

Additionally, the visual effects can't be enabled in Ubuntu under VMware. Obviously all of this points to the video driver, but hoping for help in getting the tools to work under Ubuntu 8.10. This is on VMware workstation 6.5.0 build-118166.

Thanks,

Brian

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Tanker_Bob
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Contributor

Same problem here. Haven't received an answer yet. Everything I found here and on the web concerned problems in Hardy, not Intrepid. WS 6.5.0 installs perfectly on Hardy, but Tools doesn't install vsock under Intrepid. That really makes the VM a pain to use.

I also could not get the visual affects to work under VM 6.5.0. I'm disappointed because that's what I thought that 6.5.0 was supposed to do. The video driver that matters is the virtual one in the guest, not necessarily the host driver. My understanding is that if the host supports 3D effects, so should the guest once Tools is installed. I'm not finding that to be the case here.

Given that the 3D effects don't work and that vsock won't install, I have declined to update Tools on all but one of my Ubuntu VMs. I hope that we get a fix or workaround soon.

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brianld
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Thanks, glad to hear I'm not alone.

I noticed upon several subsequent re-install attempts that the VMware tools install was complaining about an X.org driver version. I presume this is the root of my troubles with regards to video, etc.?

Does VMware typically update their tools to accomodate new OSes like Ubuntu 8.10? Or is it up to Ubuntu to update to accomodate the old tools? Not familiar with the process, but would like to get it fixed ASAP.

Thanks,

Brian

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Tanker_Bob
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Hi,

I received the same X.org error message. It could be that the new version of X.org in Intrepid isn't supported well, although the basic display works fine. That wouldn't surprise me given what we've already seen with vsock.

It is up to VMWare to update their Tools for new operating systems and kernels. However, there is an open source group that updates Tools much quicker than VMWare. You can find their package at http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/ . Unfortunately, they have not addressed this issue yet. My guess is that this is a core upgrade script issue rather than a specific vsock driver issue.

I'd like to get it fixed ASAP as well, but I'm not holding my breath. About 90% of the fixes to VMWare products come from workarounds developed in the community.

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brianld
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Hi Bob -

Thanks for the update. Let's hope it gets fixed soon - maybe a new VMware Tools package ...

-Brian

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vincenzobono
Contributor
Contributor

I've the same problem with vsocks and x.org 7.4.2 (the installation script say no drivers detected for this version).

This means:

- no resolution change on windows rescaling,

- no mouse sharing (have to activate the vmware windows with one click),

- no drag'n'drop file copying between guest and host...

All these features worked with 8.04...

About the hardware acceleration, anybody has be successful in enabling it on Linux? From what I've understood it is only available for Windows (in my vmware fusion interface I see only reference for DirectX acceleration).

Bye,

Vincenzo

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IamTHEvilONE
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not to be a party pooper, but 8.10 hasn't been officially approved. Hence you may see some problems with installing or using the 8.10 final.

8.04 LTS just got official support in 6.5.x.

http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

I'll see if anyone in my office has used 8.10 as of yet, but can't promise anything.

Also, FYI hardware acceleration is only for Windows XP guests. You can enable it in Linux hosts now, but an xp guest will only take advantage of it.

Regards,

EvilOne

1 - Check the documents

2 - Search the forums

3 - Post Question

And remember to award points to those who assist you.

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Tanker_Bob
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IamTHEvilOne,

Thank you for your comment. Any words from around the office? I would guess that not many people are standing in line to test 8.04 LTS, but a lot of us are desperately trying to test 8.10 configurations in virtual machines. The VMWare Tools installation simply seems like a script fix for header file locations, but I could be wrong. There's already a proposed fix to vmmouse in the intrepid-proposed repository that VMWare could use.

Thanks again for your time here.

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IamTHEvilONE
Immortal
Immortal

Unfortunately, no word around here.

I was elated when Ubuntu 8.04 and CentOS 5 got official support for WS 6.5, but the cutting edge usually isn't supported until well after the release. I don't know anyone in my office with 8.10 since it was just recently finalized. I am part of that group. I will probably wait until 8.10 has an LTS build before even downloading it.

Best thing I can suggest is to spam the feature request system: http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/feature.html

It's one of the reasons that CentOS got in.

Regards,

EvilOne

1 - Check the documents

2 - Search the forums

3 - Post Question

And remember to award points to those who assist you.

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Tanker_Bob
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EvilOne,

Thank you for your response and suggestion. I did make the feature request. I hope that others do as well. I added the suggestion to my blog as well.

FWIW, 8.10 will never have an LTS, because LTS goes with versions, not builds. LTS versions are only published about every 2 years, I believe. The last LTS before 8.04 was 6.06. The next LTS after 8.04 LTS should be 10.04 if the release schedules don't change. I hope that you don't wait that long to upgrade your setup. Smiley Happy

Thanks again for your insight.

Bob

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

there is an open source group that updates Tools much quicker than VMWare

Sort of misleading, since AFAIK that group is us Smiley Happy

There are two main problems Fusion (and therefore probably also Workstation) users face with Ubuntu 8.10. One is the mouse not soft ungrabbing or registering in an incorrect position. This is an Intrepid vmmouse bug and they will push out a fix at some point (hopefully soon). In fact, has a link to a prerelease version.

The second issue is that vmware-user doesn't automatically start - this is because we accidentally left out a line in the autostart config. vmware-user is responsible for lots of stuff, including screen resizing. A workaround is to specify /usr/bin/vmware-user to autostart in System > Preferences > Sessions.

Info from .

I would not expect visual effects (i.e. Compiz Fusion) to work since it relies on OpenGL and we don't currently accelerate that.

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Tanker_Bob
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etung,

Beside the vmmouse issue, vsock will not compile in an Ubuntu 8.10 guest. That's the major issue. I already have the vmmouse fix loaded and it works fine. But, without vsock, there's apparently no cut-and-paste between the host and guest, nor drag-and-drop. There is also the incompatibility with X.org 7.4.2, which also causes VMTools install to fail. Those are major shortfalls in capability, and they are noted in the thread which you link in your message. If you are, as you assert, the open source tools group, then the vsock and X.org 7.4.2 issues must be addressed ASAP. They are not fixed in the open source package, either.

Thanks,

Bob

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sefsinc
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Any workaround for this as yet?

Thanks.

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007vm999
Contributor
Contributor

Still not working... You know, I have VMWare as the top vm software company,

but I am really really disapointed. Seeing that vmware-tools still hang on a major release of one the most popular linux distro, and knowing that

that it was disponible in release candidate way before the final release, kind of blow.

You might think that they are working on it, but I tough they were allready working on it before the final release of Ubuntu. Does anyone have any official statement on vmware-tool / ubuntu 8.10 issue ?

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andersvinther
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Tanker Bob,

Copy/Paste and Drag/Drop is supplied by wmware-user - not vsock.

If you autostart vmware-user as etung mention both of those features will work - they do for me.

Anders

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jigger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi everybody,

everything vmware-user works fine for me now, but when I start vmware-user in a terminal, I get:

GtK-WARNING **: In modul path "murrine" no theme engine could be found

This error message is repeated several times. Then comes

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/bin/xorg71/vmware-user: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0: undefined symbol: g_dgettext

This sounds serious enough to warrant an analysis. Do you agree? BTW: This is a stock 8.10 updated from a stock 8.04, latest update version. No fancy stuff installed, except MySQL and OTRS (www.otrs.org).

Any timely help is greatly appreciated. I'll post my vmxsock compile time error messages to the appropriate thread.

Thanx in advance

Jörg Maaß

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nextech
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Has there been any progress on getting VMWare tools working on Ubuntu 8.10? I've combed through hundreds of message posts, and hit at least 40+ forums over the past 12 hours, but still have been unable to find a solution or get VMWare Tools working under Ubuntu 8.10.

I've done a LOT of "hunting and poking" but can't seem to find a solution. I'm a noob (when it comes to VMWare I'm learning as I go), and still trying to figure out how to get VMWare Tools installed on Ubuntu 8.10.

My first question is:

1) How did you even get the VMWare Tools installed on Ubuntu 8.10 guest on the VMWare Workstation 6.5 host (under Vista x64)?

I've tried to follow the instructions I have post here:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1128951#1128951

But VMWare Tools doesn't seem to install on the Ubuntu 8.10 guest, when I try to install the VMWare Tools on Ubuntu 8.10 guest it says "None of the pre-built vmmemctl modules for VMWare Tools is suitable for your running kernel. Do you want this program to build the vmmemctl module for your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)?"

Any ideas as to what I should do next? Is there a step by step tutorial? Do I have to build a "vmmemctl module" and if so, how do I do this? I'm a noob when it comes to this, and would need some simple step by step instructions. Thank-you!

Ubuntu 8.10 is final (not beta), so is there any way that someone from the VMWare Team could install a Ubuntu 8.10 Server x86 guest (and just do a "Vanilla" install)and get the VMWare Tools working on it and then write a simple tutorial on how we can do it?

I've looked at several threads including this one:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1094994

I'm running Workstation 6.5 build 118166 under Vista x64 Ultimate (as my host), and the guest operating system that I have installed is Ubuntu 8.10 Server. I'm trying to get the VMWare tools installed on the Ubuntu 8.10 Server (guest).

But have been unable to find a solution. I would really greatly appreciate any help in getting VMWare Tools working on the Ubuntu 8.10 Server guest.

Thank-you,

Mark

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RCY
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, Mark,

I installed a guest Ubuntu 8.10 in VMWare Server 2.0.0 running on Vista. When I went to install VMWare Tools, and got to:

But VMWare Tools doesn't seem to install on the Ubuntu 8.10 guest, when
I try to install the VMWare Tools on Ubuntu 8.10 guest it says "None
of the pre-built vmmemctl modules for VMWare Tools is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this program to build the vmmemctl module
for your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your
system)?
"

I just pressed <Enter> to accept the default <yes> answer. This worked for several of the modules, until:

The vmci module loads perfectly into the running kernel.
None of the pre-built vsock modules for VMware Tools is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vsock module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? <yes>
Extracting the sources of the vsock module.
Building the vsock module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/af_vsock.o
CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/driverLog.o
CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/util.o
/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/util.c: In function 'VSockVmciLogPkt':
/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/util.c:157: warning: format not a string literal and no format arguments
CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/linux/vsockAddr.o
LD /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.o
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_CreateHnd" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_DestroyHnd" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIEvent_Subscribe" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCI_DeviceGet" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIMemcpyFromQueueV" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIQueuePair_Detach" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCI_GetContextID" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_Send" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIQueuePair_Alloc" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIEvent_Unsubscribe" undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIMemcpyToQueueV" undefined!
CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.mod.o
LD /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
cp -f vsock.ko ./../vsock.o
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only'
Unable to make a vsock module that can be loaded in the running kernel:
insmod: error inserting '/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock.o': -1 Unknown symbol in module
There is probably a slight difference in the kernel configuration between the
set of C header files you specified and your running kernel. You may want to
rebuild a kernel based on that directory, or specify another directory.
The VM communication interface socket family is used in conjunction with the VM
communication interface to provide a new communication path among guests and
host. The rest of this software provided by VMware Tools is designed to work
independently of this feature. If you wish to have the VSOCK feature you can
install the driver by running vmware-config-tools.pl again after making sure
that gcc, binutils, make and the kernel sources for your running kernel are
installed on your machine. These packages are available on your distribution's
installation CD.
<Press the Enter key to continue.>

So, I press <Enter>, and the VMWare tools installer asks me about screen resolutions, and then does some other things, and then finally it summarizes:

Starting VMware Tools services in the virtual machine:
Switching to guest configuration: done
Guest filesystem driver: done
Mounting HGFS shares: failed
Guest memory manager: done
Guest vmxnet fast network device: done
VM communication interface: done
Blocking file system: done
Guest operating system daemon: done
The configuration of VMware Tools 2.0.0 build-122956 for Linux for this running
kernel completed successfully.
You must restart your X session before any mouse or graphics changes take
effect.
You can now run VMware Tools by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox" during an X server session.
You will need to either manually start /usr/bin/vmware-user or log out and log
back in to this desktop session to obtain the following features: guest
resolution fit, drag and drop, and file and text copy/paste. vmware-user is
configured to automatically start at a graphical login, but that won't take
effect until the next login.
To use the vmxnet driver, restart networking using the following commands:
/etc/init.d/networking stop
rmmod pcnet32
rmmod vmxnet
modprobe vmxnet
/etc/init.d/networking start
Enjoy,
--the VMware team

For those last commands, related to networking, I prefixed each command line with "sudo ", to run the command as an administrator.

Richard

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RCY
Contributor
Contributor

Hmm, on a stock 8.10 not updated from 8.04, I only get seven occurrences of the warning message:

(vmware-toolbox-gtk:17237): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

or

(vmware-user:17786): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

depending on whether I just ran vmware-toolbox or vmware-user, but not the g_dgettext error.

OK, it's not actually a stock 8.10. I ran all the updates, and added ruby, python, postgresql, and g++.

ls -l /usr/lib/libbonobo*

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2008-12-20 19:34 /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0 -> libbonobo-2.so.0.0.0

-rw-rr 1 root root 370664 2008-09-22 17:04 /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0.0.0

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2008-12-20 19:34 /usr/lib/libbonobo-activation.so.4 -> libbonobo-activation.so.4.0.0

-rw-rr 1 root root 83176 2008-09-22 17:04 /usr/lib/libbonobo-activation.so.4.0.0

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 2008-12-20 19:34 /usr/lib/libbonoboui-2.so.0 -> libbonoboui-2.so.0.0.0

-rw-rr 1 root root 379640 2008-09-22 17:26 /usr/lib/libbonoboui-2.so.0.0.0

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nextech
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

After 12 1/2+ hours, I've finally found a solution, and finally got everything working under Ubuntu 8.10 guest OS.

For more detailed instructions (step by step) on how to get VMWare Tools working on Ubuntu 8.10 Guest OS, you can look at the following links:

I created a small tutorial here:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1129103#1129103

A post by Mufasa in this link helped as well:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/887802#887802

This link was very useful as well:

The one single link that helped the most by far was found here on the Ubuntu forums:

Keep in mind that if you are running a x86 (32-bit) version of Ubuntu 8.10, then the files you need to download and use are different than the instructions on the Ubuntu forums. So look over the instructions on the Ubuntu forums (if you are using a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 8.10 guest OS), but if you are installing VMWare Tools on a 32-bit version of Ubuntu Guest OS then follow the very first link up at the top of this post, or the link here below:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1129103#1129103

That should be enough to help you (step by step) get the VMWare Tools installed and running on Ubuntu 8.10 Guest OS (32-bit or 64-bit).

Mark

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