Linux Neophyte

The installation of VMware server on Ubuntu Edgy is just like it was on Dapper, save for a potential little tweak to get things running. If you don’t know what VMware is and how it can help you, read on and then start Googling! VMware lets you create virtual machines (basically your setting up an operating system in a series of files instead of on physical hardware). You can create multiple VMs and use them to test out other Linux distros without having to take chances with your running operating system. I LOVE this technology, if you want to give it shot follow the steps below.

Download the VMware Server for Linux TAR Binary installer from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/. While your there you should also register to receive your serial number (it is required to complete the install of VMware Server).

I’m assuming that you have some type of firewall running, either a NAT router or software firewall. VMware server will be running as an Internet server on your machine. If you aren’t wearing a digital prophylactic get something on before performing this install.

Open a terminal and install some required packages:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) xinetd

Now change to the directory you downloaded the installer to:

tar -xzvf VMware-server-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz

cd vmware-server-distrib/

Note: In the next step you should feel free to accept all of the default answers. The only thing I ever change is one of the final questions, I keep my virtual machine files in my home dir instead of the default dir under /var.

Note 2: There may be an error creating the menu item for the program (don’t panic), you’re told that you’ll have to create it manually. I found that the VMware entry IS created normally under “System Tools” . If that’s not the case for you, you’ll just need to right click the Applications menu, choose Edit menus, and create a new entry pointing to vmware

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

After all of that, VMware should now be installed and working properly. You can navigate to the menu item created or type vmware into a terminal window to start the program and create a new virtual machine.

I’ve installed both VMware server and VMware Workstation on 3 different fresh installs of Edgy and I’ve had no problems creating and running virtual machines. There have been some reports that there is a library conflict in Edgy. If you find that you can’t run VMware on your machine, check out the links below for a work around.

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/59232
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1702260

written by M@ \\ tags: Edgy, Ubuntu