/DavidBezemer Food for technology enthusiasts

VMware tools and Debian 5.0

While testing the various groupware solutions I also decided to take a look at supported software on my vmware server environment. The first thing drawing my attention is the lack of support for Debian, Ubuntu/RHEL/SUSE are nicely listed, but there is no option for Debian.

So I tried installing anyways, choosing custom kernel 2.6.x series installing Debian 5.0 Lenny.

As anyone who uses VMware often would agree, the virtual machines work a lot better/faster when you have VMware Tools installed. This seemed to be the first hurdle to take, so I decided to track my effort for educational puposes.

• Go to VM > Install VMware Tools
• On the CLI type: 'mkdir /mnt/cdrom'
• Type 'mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom'
• Change to a temporary directory (ie /tmp)
• 'tar xvf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-7.8.5-156735.tar.gz' (or the appropriate version you're using)
• change directory to the vmware tools using 'cd ./vmware-tools-distrib'
• Execute the installation using './vmware-install.pl'
• Press enter at the questions to accept default values, or choose custom locations.
• ....Wait.... (Allow up to 5 minutes to complete)
• Accept the default values for further installation steps
• On the config script you will get the message "none of the prebuilt modules is suitable etc."
• Press ctrl+c to abort the config script
• Now you will have to install linux header, build-essentials and gcc using 'apt-get install gcc build-essential linux-header-`uname -r` '
• Set the correct GCC version using:
• 'rm /usr/bin/gcc' and 'ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 /usr/bin/gcc'
• After this step invoke the config script again using /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl
• Accept all default values
• For smoother network support the use of the vmxnet driver advised, instructions ar elisted at the end of the config script:
• Stop networking: '/etc/init.d/networking stop'
• Remove the old driver: 'rmmod pcnet32'
• Add the new driver: 'modprobe vmxnet'
• Start networking '/etc/init.d/networking start'
• Reboot your Virtual Machine

As alternative to all this, you can try the open-vm package which has an excellent installation manual located at: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=39005#p229783

Good luck and enjoy your fully functional Debian Installation.