Building Ubuntu VM challenges

[ColoradoMarmot]

Well, shoot.  

Finding the right ubuntu ISO's is a huge PITA.  No wonder Linux never succeeded on the desktop 🙂

Seriously, most of the links in the testing guide aren't valid anymore.  All of the arm links I can find for 21.x releases are for server only.  And for 22.04, the installer crashes and won't work.

Tried Debian too, but for the life of me I can't get the tools to install.  I know I'm rusty, but wow this is a major challenge.

[ColoradoMarmot]

I'm on 22.04 and no matter what I do, it won't show the shared folders in files in the guest.  Tried booting disabled and enabling, tried booting enabled.  tried disable/enable, tried deleting and re-adding the share - nothing seems to get it to show up in the guest.

[Technogeezer]

I added the line

vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other 0 0 

in /etc/fstab, but had to create the /mnt/hgfs mount point manually. Once I did that a "mount -a" caused the shared folders to appear magically. It also persists across reboots. 

I do think that Ubuntu has somehow borked open-vm-tools desktop integration. With the latest Jammy update, I can not drag anything to either the desktop or a Files window, nor can I drag from VM to the host. This worked before the latest Jammy update (March 1st). 

Other distros work as expected for the most part.

I'm beginning to think that if Ubuntu can find a way to mess something up, they will. I guess though that this should be expected as Jammy is technically a beta release. Guess I have to find a way to let them know they broke something.

[Technogeezer]

I also am able to view the shared mount point through the Files application. However, I had to navigate through "Computer", then /mnt then hgfs. My shared folder showed up. I added /mnt/hgfs to the sidebar to make it easier to get to and fro:

[ColoradoMarmot]

Maybe I should just drop fighting Ubuntu.  Had any luck getting debian or one of the others up and stable?

[ColoradoMarmot]

Bingo! and Doh!

Ok, it is there, it just doesn't show up in the sidebar like it did in the past.  I can work with that, thanks!

[Technogeezer]

I'm starting to have issues with cut/paste and drag/drop with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed now after updating.

Something's not quite right with open-vm-tools desktop integration with whatever's being upgraded. It's starting to appear that it's a cross-distro issue.. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

Sigh, and found now that my VPN won't work on a .15 kernel....

and I thought Windows was bad!

[Technogeezer]

Oh by the way, the latest Jammy daily build (03-14) now boots once again but still requires the "acpi=force" kernel argument.

You'll also see once this build is booted that something in the system has failed - this looks like it's already been reported to the Ubuntu developers.

Ubuntu pre-release versions are pretty crappy even as far as pre-release versions go. I hope they clean this stuff up before release.

[odanylewycz]

It looks like as of the 3/19 build, adding acpi=force doesn't work, and the VM doesn't boot. I went down this path as I did an apt update and apt upgrade in my VM, and then when restarting, I was left with simply a black screen. So starting off with a new build from today, and using the same technique of acpi=force to get to installing didn't work. Had to go back to the 3/11 build to get the VM to boot, as the steps here worked for me initially to do a full install.

Hoping this gets fixed soon.

Has anyone had better luck / stability with different distros?

Thanks in advance!

[Technogeezer]

@odanylewycz , are you able to boot into an older kernel to see what kernel version was installed? I'm going to see if my Jammy VM is waiting for an update and will give me the same issue as you're seeing.

My fear is that we're seeing a proliferation of an issue that some of us found as described in https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-for-Apple-Silicon-Tech/Fedora-35-kernel-5-16-14-will-not-bo...

We might be seeing this propagate as a result of distros picking up back ports to address the Linux Dirty Pipe vulnerability.

[odanylewycz]

Well here's the kicker. I spoke too soon in my last comment. I can boot into the 3/11 build, into the desktop using acpi=force, then doing the install (and making sure not to do updates during the install). Then uncommenting wayland in target/etc/gdm3/custom.conf as you noted, and then shutting down. What I noticed then is trying to boot, it gets stuck at VMWare logo. I shut down again, and start it up again. I get to the boot screen, press e to edit Ubuntu boot, add acpi=force before quiet, ctrl x to then boot up. But here I get the same black screen as with a fresh boot of the 3/19.

As for the kernel version in the 3/11 build its 5.15.0-23-generic. See attached screenshot. 

In regards to the Dirty Pipe patch and that propagating into the kernel versions for other distros, I think you're right.

PS. I repeated the above steps, without uncommenting the wayland config in /target/etc/gdm3/custom.conf, it still lead to a black screen when trying to boot. Figured it was worth a shot.

[Technogeezer]

Latest update to Jammy 22.04 installed kernel 5.15.0-23 which fails to boot. I am able to boot with the prior kernel of 5.15.0-18

Looks like if you have any Linux installed, don't under any circumstances upgrade the kernel until this gets resolved. And if you're installing for the first time, try to find full distibution installer dated before last week and don't allow updates over the network. Don't attempt to use network installation media at all. .

[odanylewycz]

Thanks for working through this issue with me Technogeezer. I wish I took a snapshot before I haphazardly did apt update and apt upgrade. Should've known better.

Looking through their build directory, I sadly can't find older builds of Jammy Jellyfish, not sure if thats for security reasons or not. I can find older server builds, and different versions (other than 22.04), just not desktop builds. Nonetheless, I'll have to wait until, they resolve this issue.

For anyone interested, it looks like the Debian is working well with no errors, so far. Given they don't nearly update as quickly as Ubuntu, that doesn't come too much of a surprise.

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/arm64/iso-dvd/

[todivefor]

I'm running Jammy 22.04, 5.15.0-22-generic. It boots fine. No more updates for awhile. I did snapshot at this level.

[Odaeus]

Because these comments helped me, I'd like to add another datapoint that after upgrading to Fusion e.x.p 19431034 my long-running Ubuntu 21.10 installation could no longer boot with console text state stating:

EFI stub: Booting Linux Kernel...
EFI stub: EFI_ RNG PROTOCOL unavailable
EFI stub: ERROR: FIRMUARE BUG: kernel image not aligned on 64k boundaru
EFI stub: ERROR: FIRMWARE BUG: Image BSS over laps ad jacent EFT
EFT stub: Using DTB from configuration table memory region
EFI stub: Exiting boot services and installing virtual address map...

From discussion elsewhere it turns out this message is not the cause of the boot failure.

In the GRUB boot console I was able to go to advanced options and select kernel 5.13.0-30 (instead of -35) and it booted successfully. Now I guess I have to make sure this Kernel doesn't get automatically uninstalled.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Thanks - this explains that strange message I've had from time to time.  I've been restoring from backup to recover.  Time to disable auto-updates in the guest.

[the_Jessica]

Sorry I didn't get that

I was in Grub and I typed

linux /casper/vmlinuz quiet acpi=force ---

but after that what should I do?

I pressed escape and I was in boot menu and I entered ubuntu but still I'm getting the same problem I got before:

kernel image not aligned on 64k boundary vmware

Image BSS overlaps adjacent efi memory region

I will appreciate it if you help me with that.

[the_Jessica]

Hey,

I did exactly what you said @Technogeezer but I got the same problem(I attached the image).

I will appreciate any help.

[the_Jessica]

I did this instruction and I got the same Error(I attached the image)

I will appreciate any help.

[Technogeezer]

@the_Jessica What Ubuntu version are you trying to install and when did you obtain the installation ISO?