Fedora Core 6 and VMware Tools

[Bill_Evans]

I have done a bit of searching and found some information regarding installing VMware Tools on Fedora Core 6. I have noticed that quite a few people have had issues. And, there is no documented fix that I have seen.

I setup FC6 on ESX 3.01 initially without any problems - it was working just fine. Once I went and installed VMware Tools problems appeared. The Tools installer was unable to install the network or memory manager piece. Also, after the install my NIC would appear "Inactive" everytime the system was rebooted - and I had to manually activate it each time.

Can anyone help us out with this? I am stuck!

[pdpelsem]

for fedora 5 i did the following

connect cd iso with vm tools : [] /vmimages/tools-isoimages/linux.iso

in the guest:

\[root@capitan tmp]# cd /tmp

\[root@capitan tmp]# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt

mount: block device /dev/cdrom is write-protected, mounting read-only

\[root@capitan tmp]# tar -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-3.0.1-41412.tar.gz

...

\[root@capitan tmp]# cd vmware-tools-distrib/

\[root@capitan vmware-tools-distrib]# ./vmware-install.pl

...

\[root@capitan vmware-tools-distrib]#

[enDemand]

Bill, I'm having the same problems right now as we speak. There are 2 major reasons for the issues that you're having.

#1 - linux/version.h no longer contains UTS_RELEASE. It's now in linux/utsrelease.h.

#2 - linux/config.h is now renamed to linux/autoconf.h.

#3 - The Xorg.conf generated by vmware-tools-config.pl is broken. Xorg.0.log says it's due to a broken mouse config.

I'm working through the problems and will post the fix when I have it. It looks like it will require modifying the vmware-tools-config.pl and creating a symlink.

Will let you know...

[enDemand]

OK...it's working now, so a quick update. This may already be posted, but I sure couldn't find it...

#1 isn't a problem with the VMware Tools from 3.0.1 because vmware-config-tools.pl accounts for both files (version.h and utsrelease.h). Note: utsrelease.h is used in every Linux release based on the 2.6.18 kernel or newer.

#2 was super-easy to resolve...just created a symlink called "config.h" (no quotes) in the same source as the autoconf.h. Be sure to go to the appropriate kernel source that you're currently running. This can easily be done by running:

cd /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)*/include/linux

You can see where you ended up by running: pwd. To create the symlink, just run:

ln -c autoconf.h config.h

I was able to then run /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl without any issues, except for the folder sharing driver, which I don't plan on using. I haven't figured out how to get that to compile yet.

#3 may be the cause of one little problem, but I haven't spent the time to work on it since it's so minor. I was able to get my preferred resolutions by editing xorg.conf, but I still have to do CTRL+ALT to release control of the mouse. I've seen this in Ubuntu installs as well, but not sure how to fix this.

Hopefully a VMware Tools update is forthcoming that will fix all of these little idiosyncrasies.

Good luck!