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Install VMware Tools on Ubuntu

Matt Jones | July 31, 2006

I’ve had a really hard time trying to find the way to get VMware Tools on Linux virtual machines, but I’ve got it down to just a few steps. If you’re using a ‘big name’ distribution with a graphical interface, it’s not hard to install. But, I like to use Debian or Ubuntu, without X11 (the aforementioned “graphical interface”), so it’s a pain in the butt.

How to install Vmware Tools on Ubuntu without X11:

Install Ubuntu Server
Login
Create a root shell:sudo bash
Update your sources:apt-get update
Upgrade your installed packages (dist-upgrade to force kernel upgrade):apt-get dist-upgrade
Reboot
Create a root shell again:sudo bash
Install packages VMware Tools needs:apt-get install linux-headers-server build-essential
Install VMware tools
Mount the VMware Tools CD ISO:mount /cdrom
Copy VMware Tools to home:cp /cdrom/VmwareTools-x.x.x-xxxxx.tar.gz ~
Go home:cd ~
Untar/Gzip the install:tar -zxf VmwareTools-x.x.x-xxxxx.tar.gz
Go into the resulting directory:cd vmware-tools-distrib
Start the installer:./vmware-install.pl
Install will ask you questions, the defaults should work fine.
Remove the basic AMD PCnet module (if you get errors about building the ethernet driver, run this command and start at step 14 again):rmmod pcnet32
Rebuild module dependancies:depmod -a
Install the VMware accelerated network interface:modprobe vmxnet
Restart network service:/etc/init.d/networking restart
Reboot

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5 responses

I found your guide here to be awesome compaired to

Chris | June 25, 2007

I found your guide here to be awesome compaired to others, but the very last command was slightly different in mine, had to use this instead. Maybe a typo, great work though.

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Thanks Chris, I made the correction. It might be a

Matt Jones | June 25, 2007

Thanks Chris, I made the correction. It might be a change from Ubuntu 6.06 to the newest, or a typo!

Great article. I'd like to also add, that on some debian

xushi | January 3, 2008

Great article.

I’d like to also add, that on some debian installs, it might not find GCC as you might not have it installed. Just in case, just quickly install it first with apt-get.