Antony’s blog

[Update: the problem described below is now fixed]

Unfortunately installing vmware-tools inside of Ubuntu Dapper Drake does not by default give you the ability to resize your desktop - I was getting an error message during the tools config saying “No X install found”. I spent some time searching the web, reading the vmware forums, etc. and finally found some nice people who had come up with a solution. Even once you have installed it using these instructions, you need to use the Preferences->Screen resolution menu from inside Ubuntu to do it instead of just resizing the vmware menu. Anyhow, here are the instructions.

1. Start up a terminal window and do the following:

   sudo bash
   apt-get install build-essential
   apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
   

2. Get the patch text from here and drop it into /tmp/patch.txt.

   [Update: changed the link to a locally cached copy, since the original source seems to be down]

3. Get the vmware-tools-any update by doing this:

   cd /tmp
   wget http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmware-tools-any-update1.tar.gz
   tar xzf vmware-tools-any-update1.tar.gz
   

4. From vmware menu, choose vm->install vmware tools - you should see a mounted CD image show up on the desktop. Back in your terminal window, do the following:

   cd /tmp
   tar xzvf /cdrom/VMwareTools*.tar.gz
   cd vmware-tools-distrib/
   ./vmware-install.pl
   

   During vmware-install.pl, I chose the default answers to everything but at the end did not choose to launch vmware-config-tools.pl.

5. Then do this in your terminal:

   cd /tmp/vmware-tools-any-update1/
   ./runme.pl
   

   Again, choose to not run vmware-config-tools.pl yet

   cd /usr/bin
   patch vmware-config-tools.pl /tmp/patch.txt
   ./vmware-config-tools.pl
   

6. Lastly, you can edit your config to use the vmware mouse:

   perl -p -i.bak -e 's/\"mouse\"/\"vmmouse\"/' /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14733625.htm

The next step was to radio for emergency landing clearance.

“They came back and asked what my problem was,” he said. “I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane. They cleared me in.”