VMware Workstation 6.5.3 on Ubuntu Karmic 9.10
VMware workstation 6.5.3 is supported only on Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 and backwards. With this brief tutorial we’ll have a look on how to install it also on Ubuntu Karmic 9.10. By default the installer would freeze at the “Configuring…” stage, never actually completing.
1) The first step consists in installing the program via terminal and suppressing the warnings otherwise eventually stucking the installer. BitOBear has provided a more in depth explanation of what’s behind the scenes for the installer to stop.
NOTE: I’m considering the 32bit build, if you use the x64 bit build simply replace i386 with x86_64
chmod u+x VMware-Workstation-6.5.3-185404.i386.bundle
while true; do sudo killall -9 vmware-modconfig-console; sleep 1; done
in a separate terminal run:
sudo ./VMware-Workstation-6.5.3-185404.i386.bundle --ignore-errors
when the installer has finished, terminate the previous command (while true…) with a CTRL+C or simply close the terminal window.
vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
BitOBear adds the following tips:
a) Once you have a hung installer session you have to kill the python command that is running the installer. Think of that as a step-0 if it comes up.
b) If the installer still hangs, the kill loop may not be fast enough; start over but leave the ‘sleep 1;’ out of the kill loop. It will slow down the install even more, but it is more likely to catch the command in time.
2) The setup step has completed. However you would have to face a few usability issues:
a) The mouse automatically ungrabs outside an area of 640 x 480 (vga resolution)
edit file
/
add at the bottom
VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=force
Leave a trailing line at the end of the file (as Steve suggests in the comments).
b) If you cannot use any more modifier keys (CTRL ALT SHIFT INS etc.) first check if you have a residual fix from previous setups which is no more needed now. (If this is the first time you install VMware you can skip this step).
Notice, however, that randomly you could still lose modifier keys, typing in any terminal or ALT+F2 field setxkbmap restores them. Furthermore the xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true is still needed if you are willing to install VMware Workstation 7 beta.
edit file
$HOME/.vmware/config
ensure the following text is not present or commented out with a #
xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true
as an alternative temporary fix you can simply type
setxkbmap
in any terminal window. This would resume the modifier keys function.
Related posts:
- Installing VMware 6.0.2 and VMware Server on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04
- Install nvidia-glx-180 drivers in Ubuntu Karmic 9.10
- arrow keys not working with vmware
- vmware-config.pl gcc version error
- Migrate VMware to VirtualBox
- update VirtualBox signing key 54422A4B98AB5139
- Do not require the password for cpu frequency scaling in Ubuntu Karmic 9.10
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Thanks for these instruction. While it took me two times to upgrade VMware (from 6.5.2 to 6.5.3) and Ubuntu (from 9.04 to 9.10), that was reading errors on my part and not the instructions. I have not checked out 2.b modifier keys, but at least VMware is up and running with my Window XP guest system.
Thanks, again
[...] andere Lösung für das gleiche Problem findet sich unter http://linux.aldeby.org/vmware-workstation-6-5-3-on-ubuntu-karmic-9-10.html . Posted in Tipps und Tricks, linux | No Comments [...]
Great post, helpful, and concise. I used it a few months ago and then just again now after getting a new laptop and putting karmic-64 on it.
Thanks.
Hi! I installed vmware version VMware® Workstation 7.0.0 build-203739 on Ubuntu 9.10 (2.6.31-19-generic). I use windows XP image and it works perfect. But, if I left some applications opened on vmware XP image over night, next day host system became verry slow and unuseful. After restart of vmware image, everything is ok again. This is hapening every day. And its getting annoying. I know that vmware version 5.0 on ubuntu 8.04 is working great without this kind of problem. What should i do to solve this? Thank youfor help.
Hi jbranko!
That is likely caused by the pagination of the RAM on the swap partition. To figure this out clearly you should run your Guest OS and when it’s fully loaded type into a terminal free and compare that output with the one you get after the system becomes very slow. the SWAP field would probably be very intensively used.
The solution is reducing the memory allocated to the Guest OS. Keep it half of the host and you would rarely face that issue again. It could also be a memory leak of wmWare itself, in this case we can do nothing but upgrade the program when an update is released.
.
Thanks for this guide, it has been very helpful
An advice:
instead of running in a separate terminal:
[code] while true; do sudo killall -9 vmware-modconfig-console; sleep 1; done [/code]
try to:
[code] export VMWARE_SKIP_MODULES=true [/code]
and then start the installer in the same terminal. It should be work and next you can proceed with the rest of this fantastic tutorial
Thank you very much for your suggestion lorenzo!
These instructions worked wonderfully well for the first (k)ubuntu 9.10 VM installation of the VMware-Workstation-6.5.3-185404.i386.bundle — but alas, when I had a hard drive failure and repeated these instructions with a new install of 9.10 (from *same install CD*!), it installed itself and then promptly uninstalled itself again, with no intermittent prompts. I took out the “sleep” loop, and still no joy. I used Lorenzo’s “export” command (post 6 Mar 2010), and instead of running through the uninstall process, it hung on the “Configuring” dialog box, with the blue bar about 3/4 of the way done. Oddly enough, it responded to a ^C to cancel the process – not requiring a kill command. It’s even the same VMWare bundle file, so I’ m guessing there is something about my kubuntu installation (Linux pammy 2.6.31-20-generic-pae #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 06:25:51 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux)
Hi HJ! What happened to you sounds indeed weird! The only thing that comes to my mind is that you could have let your kubuntu system to update during the setup process (or by contrast have not updated it yet…).
By the way VMware has now released an updated VMware Workstation 7.01 version which has support for (K)Ubuntu 9.10 HostOS. You may find it here: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_workstation/7_0#
Hmm. These procedures worked (modifying bundle name) for installing VMWare Workstation 6.5.4 on Ubuntu 9.10. THANKS!
One further tip. With regard to 2a) I initially experienced the problem with the mouse ungrabbing even after adding the line to /etc/vmware/bootstrap
VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=force
The problem was that I placed it at the end of the file without a trailing line feed. Reediting and pressing return solved it.
Alas – not quite perfect.
I run my Windows XP VM under this VMWare Workstation installation, and the mouse still is not right. I run the XP under a 1280*1024 resolution and when I go into full screen mode, I find that while most of the screen is accessible to my mouse, the very bottom portion is not. Certainly VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=force helped but not 100%. Can anything further be done? This was not an issue with Workstation 6.5.3 on this platform.
Thank you : This procedure works for 6.5.4 which has the same problem as 6.5.3.
Thanks It works great
Amazing that vmware released an update (6.5.4) that didn’t fix this pretty severe problem. Surely they must be well aware of it by now? Kinda makes me think they’re just trying to get money out of people by forcing them to upgrade to version 7!
Thanks Joel for your feedback. Unfortunately these are the drawbacks of the closed source and patented approach in software.
I’ve written an article on how to migrate seamlessly from VMWare to VirtualBox, you may consider having a look at it!
http://linux.aldeby.org/migrate-vmware-to-virtualbox.html