Ubuntu 9.10 + VMWare Fusion 3.0.0 -- BROKEN AUDIO -- VMWare? Are you there?

[ivocal]

There are several posts on both VMWare and Ubuntu forums about broken audio with Karmic and VMWare Fusion (2 and 3)

For the record, audio works great when Karmic is installed on my Dell laptop. Audio is broken when installed on VMWare Fusion.

Some people have suggested that removing pulseaudio is a solution to this problem. I have tried this and it does work "somewhat", but I reject it as a solution.

Here are the issues with removing pulseaudio:

1. You lose the System -> Preferences -> Sound controls and with it the ability to select among multiple audio devices. I need the ability to connect multiple audio devices and select among them on the fly.

2. If you suspend/resume then your audio is right back where it was before you removed pulseaudio, so clearly removing pulseaudio did not "fix" the problem.

Why should I have to cripple the OS audio support just so I can use it with VMWare?

Where is the update that VMWare should have pushed out already to solve this problem?

Why is VMWare silient on this problem? Where is your acknowledement of the issue and expected fix date?

Remember, Ubuntu works fine on standard hardware, but not on VMWare virtualized hardware. I would say that this makes it a VMWare problem, since you advertise that you support Ubuntu Linux. Therefore, a series of linux OS tweaks just to get partial audio support cannot be considered a "solution".

Wake up VMWare...

[da485089]

The difference in how they specify what is supported is interesting.

I did a bit of testing yesterday with Ubuntu 9.10 on Parallels Desktop 5. Unlike VMWare, the sound works, but it definitely is not without problems. For instance, the login music skips and synchronization is consistently off when watching videos. I would normally overlook this, assuming a bad video, or a busy system at login time. So I then installed Ubuntu 9.04 and the login music played without skips and video synchronization was perfect on the same video.

So, Ubuntu 9.10 audio is somewhat broken in general, independent of virtualization product,

[img47]

Good to know, I haven't notice this when testing Parallels.

I will wait for Fusion 3.0.1 before making any decisions then

[WoodyZ]

I will wait for Fusion 3.0.1 before making any decisions then

JSYK There are no guarantees that Fusion 3.0.1 will support Ubuntu 9.10.

[img47]

Of course - there is also no guarantee, that 3.0.1 will ever be released. I haven't pay them any money for developing this product any further than 3.0.0.

[WoodyZ]

Of course - there is also no guarantee, that 3.0.1 will ever be released.

If VMware follows their past then there will be some maintenance releases of Fusion 3, ie 3.0.1, 3.0.2 and I'd be very surprised if they did follow suite as they typically do with all of their products however not all maintenance releases introduce new functionality or support for previously unsupported OSes although in all likelihood they will eventually support Ubuntu 9.10.

I haven't pay them any money for developing this product any further than 3.0.0.

Maintenance releases are free and a required upgrade payment typically does not happen till a .5 as in 3.5.0 or full point release as in 4.0.0 in the case of Fusion. I forget which version of Workstation but IIRC there was a .5 release that required a paid upgrade.