Experience With Installing Linux

[jonheal]

First of all, I am a complete Linux newbie, until a few days ago, I had never seen it in operation, let alone used it. But I've been curious, so I decided to create a VM. I chose Ubuntu, because it seems to be a popular distribution, and it's one that shows up in Fusion's list when you step through the wizard to create a VM.

I did a little research before I started, and I found quite a few posts about the issues with installing VMware Tools in Linux. This link appeared to provide a process for successfully installing the Tools that many found helpful:

I decided to attempt to follow the instructions to the letter. It was a little disconcerting because the instructions indicated that it was necessary to install a gcc compiler in Linux in order for the Tools installation process to complete successfully, and yet there was no mention of this in the VMware help file regarding installing Tools in Linux.

Nevertheless, I proceded with the installation. First I installed Ubuntu 7.04 from the .iso file. When the installation was complete, I moved the .iso file to the Trash Can ("ejected" it"), and restarted. Upon restart, Ubuntu's update manager infomred me of about 170 awaiting updates. I let the update manager apply the updates. I then proceded with Sven's instructions to install the VMware tools. This process appeared successful, as well.

When it was all said and done, Linux appeared to be installed okay, but it seemed a little flaky. I experienced a number of Linux application crashes. Screen resolution settings had issues. Overall, it gave me the feeling that something was not quite right.

To make a long story a little shorter, I recreated the VM many times, trying different variations of the process. I tried backing off to Ubuntu 6.06. I tried installing the Tools without installing the gcc compiler first, etc., etc.

Ultimately, here's what I discoverd: If you install VMware Tools immediately after installing 7.04, but before you let the update manager apply any updates, it installs fine without any additional steps like installing the gcc compiler. If you let the update manager to its thing, many of the updates that get installed appear to be deep down Linux updates, maybe even kernel updates. If those updates are applied, the perl script that installs VMware Tools can no longer recognize the Linux installation correctly. Likewise, if you update Linux 7.04 after you install the Tools, and then attempt to reinstall the Tools, the process will also fail.

I'm not sure the current version of VMware Tools is completely kosher with a fully and currently updated version of Ubuntu 7.04.

[admin · Accepted solution]

We include prebuilt modules for popular Linux distros, which is why you don't need the compiler/headers for a stock install. However, as you've noticed, kernel updates can break things, and some of them come out after we build the tools, so you need to compile them yourself. Also, even if the tools are installed, if you update the kernel you're supposed to rerun the config script in case things broke.

The good news is that we recently open-sourced the tools, and they'll hopefully make their way into the mainline tree, or at least into the major vendor's distros. When/if this happens, it would mean that not only would you not have to compile tools anymore, you wouldn't even need to install them at all because they'd come with the system.

[jonheal]

That's good news. I see from the press release that Mark Shuttleworth chimed in, so hopefully, he'll devote a teeny portion of his billions to the task.