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Installing the VMware tools in Ubuntu/Debian using .deb archives

By Christian

Searching VMware tools packaged as .deb archives for Debian or Ubuntu has failed for all of my searches. The solutions I found in the first place were all related to install the tools from the tar Archive provided by VMware, e.g.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-install-vmware-tools-in-ubuntu.html,
VMware – Community Ubuntu Documentation,
VMware/Tools – Community Ubuntu Documentation.

The problem is that the name of the package has changed to open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-gui in the not upcoming Ubuntu release named Hardy:

Ubuntu — Informationen über Paket open-vm-tools-gui in hardy
Ubuntu — Informationen über Paket open-vm-tools in hardy

The packages are based on these source releases:
SourceForge.net: Files for Open Virtual Machine Tools

Installing these packages from Hardy in a Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy ) system you may take the following way:

  • Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list to get the sources from Hardy: 
    deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy main universe
  • Then it is possible to build the package from source (as it is decribed at http://www.selflinux.org/selflinux/html/apt06.html): 
    $ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get build-dep open-vm-tools
$ sudo apt-get -b source open-vm-tools
  • Finally install the succefully build deb archives: 
    $ sudo dpkg -i open-vm-tools_2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1_i386.deb open-vm-tools-gui_2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

    Wähle vormals abgewähltes Paket open-vm-tools.
(Lese Datenbank ... 114218 Dateien und Verzeichnisse sind derzeit installiert.)
Entpacke open-vm-tools (aus open-vm-tools_2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Wähle vormals abgewähltes Paket open-vm-tools-gui.
Entpacke open-vm-tools-gui (aus open-vm-tools-gui_2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Richte open-vm-tools ein (2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1) ...
* Loading open-vm-tools modules
FATAL: Module vmhgfs not found.
FATAL: Module vmmemctl not found.                     [ OK ]
* Starting open-vm guest daemon guestd                           [ OK ]
Richte open-vm-tools-gui ein (2008.01.23-74039-0ubuntu1) ...
  • The FATAL messages above are showing that the named kernel modules are missing. As far as I can remember the module vmhgfs eases the use of host files within the guest system. I suppose that these modules will be available with the upcoming Hardy release.

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This entry was posted on February 22, 2008 at 14:51 and is filed under Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Installing the VMware tools in Ubuntu/Debian using .deb archives”

  1. VMware Image Größe reduzieren « Christians Internet-Tagebuch in Deutsch Says:
    February 26, 2008 at 23:36 | Reply

    [...] Installation des Pakets bei der Ubuntu Version 7.10 (Gutsy) beschreibt der Artikel “Installing the VMware tools in Ubuntu/Debian using .deb archives“. Nach Installation der open-vm-tools liefert der folgende Befehl eine grafische [...]

  2. William M Says:
    May 2, 2008 at 13:24 | Reply

    As of May 1, 2008, the repository does not appear to contain the open-vm-tools pacakge any longer. There is a launchpad report (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/open-vm-tools/+question/30436) which gives an alternate Debian package that can be used. Here are the steps I followed on a Hardy Heron guest OS:

    1. Download the original and diff files from Debian archives
    2. Extract and patch the original source
    3. ./configure –without-x
    4. make
    5. sudo make modules

    The last step failed to compile. I then tried downloading the latest source from sourceforge.net. I had to install the following packages (libproc-dev libdnet-dev libdumbnet-dev). The make worked without error but building the modules again failed with errors involving vmxnet_get_stats among others).

    Hopefully the Ubuntu developers will work on getting the tools packaged for future releases.

    William

  3. Hervé Says:
    June 30, 2008 at 17:14 | Reply

    The dependencies for the latest tools 2008-06-20 are:
    build-essential libx11-dev libxext-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxtst-dev libgtk2.0-dev libproc-dev

    Then:
    ./configure –without-dnet –without-icu && make
    sudo make install

    WFM
    Hervé

  4. Joel Says:
    August 28, 2008 at 19:39 | Reply

    If you’re starting your virtual machine from scratch, you can use these pre-made virtual machines:

    http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1224
    http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1258

    I’m not sure what the difference is between the two (if any), but both appear to have Ubuntu 8.04 with VMware Tools already installed.

    I had started creating an XUbuntu virtual machine, thinking that its lower machine specs would make it a better fit for a VM since the VM will likely only consume part of your RAM. But I may give Ubuntu a try b/c I really want the copy & paste and drag & drop features that come with VMWare Tools. Without those, anything on the virtual machine pretty much stays on the virtual machine unless you use the Internet.

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