[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.
- Start up a terminal window and do the following:
sudo bash apt-get install build-essential apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
- 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]
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- Lastly, you can edit your config to use the vmware mouse:
perl -p -i.bak -e 's/\"mouse\"/\"vmmouse\"/' /etc/X11/xorg.conf