Ubuntu – VMWare Unity Mode with Ubuntu 12.10

In WMWare Workstation you can select if you want to fit the guest to the window or the window to the guest in Edit -> Preferences.

I guess this setting should be there for the Player as well and it would be at least a workaround for your issue if you just disable both or play around with it.

EDIT: This problem may not be related to 12.10, bur rather to 3.5/3.6 kernels (I'm using mainline 3.6.2, because I understand it has better support for my ATI video card...)

The problem seems to be VMWare side, rather than ubuntu side.

I have successfully solved this problem by applying the patch found here (direct download link: vmware9_kernel35_patch.tar.bz2). The patched is for kernel 3.5, but I'm using 3.6 and it still fixed my problem. Note, the patch's name indicates it's for Workstation 9, but it is also for Player 5.0.0

Uninstalling

Some people in the thread linked above suggest uninstalling BEFORE upgrading to 12.10. My exact process was somewhat convoluted and may be a bit of an exception, so I am unclear if you need to uninstall or not. It may work installed the patch after upgrading. Should you want to, here are the instructions:

sudo vmware-installer -u vmware-player
sudo rm  /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/.patched

or a much more involved uninstall like this:

sudo -i

/usr/bin/vmware-installer -u vmware-workstation

/etc/init.d/vmware stop
lsmod | grep vm

cd /lib/modules/kernel_version/miscmv vm* /tmp

rmmod vmnet.o
rmmod vmmon.o
rmmod vmci.o
rmmod vmblock.o
rmmod vmppuser.o

rm /etc/rc.d/init.d/rc2.d/*vmware*
rm /etc/rc.d/init.d/rc3.d/*vmware*
rm /etc/rc.d/init.d/rc5.d/*vmware*
rm /etc/rc.d/init.d/rc6.d/*vmware*

rm -rf /etc/vmware*
rm /usr/bin/vmware-usbarbitrator
rm /usr/bin/vmnet*
rm -r /usr/lib/vmware*
rm -r /usr/share/doc/vmware*
rm -fr /var/run/vm*`

Applying the Patch

The zip contains a .sh script. Run it. Very simple.

• For me, the patch didn't properly detect my VMPlayer 5 version (perhaps due to a botched uninstall, careful copying and pasting the contents of the uninstall process above and pasting it into the console... like I said, my process was convoluted), so commented the error text, applied the patch, and it worked.