thanks. I misspoke: I imported an ova.
The vm boots straight to the gui - no login is required, and no option to do otherwise is offered.. Networking is not fully configured so I cannot ssh, I have been unable to find an option to open a console window, as is available esxi.
Given that I cannot use the mouse in the interface (gnome, i believe), thus cannot open a terminal, I cannot install VMware tools. 
Nor can I tab among the icons as none can be selected from which to begin tabbing.