Ubuntu – vmware tools support in Ubuntu 11.04 guest OS

Ubuntuvmwarevmware-tools

I have been trying to get vmware tools support successfully configured and started in my Ubuntu 11.04 guest. I am running a current version of vmware workstation on Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate with an Ubuntu 11.04 guest install. This VM was created using the easyinstall option in vmware workstation.

I have manually reinstalled and reconfigured vmware tools with the follwoing results.

last bit of relevant output following the vmware-config-tools.pl execution.

Creating a new initrd boot image for the kernel.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic
initctl: Job failed to start
Unable to start services for VMware Tools

syslog output following reboot when vmware tools service fials

Jun 21 17:44:33 ubuntu tpvmlpd[17011]: bad device "/dev/**" given
Jun 21 17:44:33 ubuntu init: vmware-tools pre-start process (16816) terminated with status 1

I am hoping someone has some ideas.. Thanks,
Pat

Best Answer

Try

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-virtual
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends open-vm-dkms
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
sudo vmware-toolbox

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – VMware tools for Ubuntu 10.10

You can install the open version of the VMware tools through apt-get. From a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10, just do this:

apt-get install --no-install-recommends open-vm-dkms
apt-get install open-vm-tools

That should get your screen resizing, clipboard, file drag-and-drop, etc. running.

Open-VM-Tools vs VMware-Tools

The VMware Tools package that ships with VMware products contains both open source and closed source components. The Open VM Tools packages is just the open source subset of the VMware Tools package. In general, you can expect that Open VM Tools will provide the same basic features that VMware Tools does, but there may be a few extra things that VMware Tools includes. Also, if your Linux distro has a VMware Tools package in it's repositories, it is based on Open VM Tools an not VMware Tools.

UPDATE: Earlier I was reluctant to be specific about what code was in open-vm-tools vs VMware Tools because the set changes. That's still true, but I found a list from the open-vm-tools website, so I though I would include that here.

The open-vm-tools FAQ says the following about what code it contains vs VMWare Tools:

All of the non-experimental kernel modules and user level applications that have been developed solely by VMware are being released. Certain experimental drivers are planned for future release. VMware will encourage 3rd parties to release their contributions under the GPL.

More specifically:

Drivers for devices and filesystems access

Memory ballooning

Shared folders

Drag and Drop, Text and File Copy/Paste

Clipboard sharing

Disk wiping and shrinking

Time synchronization

Automatic guest screen resolution resizing

GuestInfo (provides statistics about guest environment)

Guest SDK (provides information about the VM)

Soft power operations

Multiple monitor support

GTK Toolbox UI

Again, this set changes over time. As new functionality is released via VMware Tools, it may take some time for it to find it's way to open-vm-tools, or it may not make it there at all if VMware is unable to release it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – VMware tools for Ubuntu 10.10

Open-VM-Tools vs VMware-Tools

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