Troubleshooting VMware on Ubuntu

Summary of different problems while using VMware products on Ubuntu. This article is going to be updated from time to time with new information about running VMware products more or less smoothly on Ubuntu.

Following are links to existing articles:

• Running VMware Player on Linux (xubuntu Hardy Heron)
• Running VMware Server on Linux (version 1.0.6 on xubuntu)
• Using ext4 in VMware machine

VMware mouse grab/ungrab problem

(Source: LinuxInsight)

Upgrading GTK library in Ubuntu since Karmic Koala gives you a strange mouse behaviour. Even if you have "Grab when cursor enters window" option set, VMware won't grab your pointer when you move mouse into the VMware window. Also, if you use Ctrl-G to capture the pointer, VMware window will release it as soon as you move mouse around a little bit. Quite annoying behavior...

Fortunately, there's a simple workaround that can fix things until VMware resolves incompatibilities with the new GTK library. VMware Workstation ships with many standard libraries including libgtk, so the only thing you need to do is to force it to use it's own versions. The simplest way to do that is to add the following line to the end of the /etc/vmware/bootstrap configuration file and restart the Workstation.

export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK="force"

The interface will look slightly odd, because older version of GTK is being used, but at least it will work properly.

Note: After upgrading a new Linux kernel, it is necessary to compile the VMware modules, this requires to temporarily comment the export line in /etc/vmware/bootstrap.

Install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu/Linux

Since quite some time Adobe Technologies released the Linux version of Adobe AIR to bring web applications and widgets to your desktop. Installing new applications on a Linux system is not always as easy as switching the computer on. The following instructions might be helpful to install Adobe AIR on any Linux system.

First of all, get the latest installer of Adobe AIR from http://get.adobe.com/air/ - as of writing this article the file name is AdobeAIRInstaller.bin. Save the download in your preferred folder.

Now, there are two ways to run the installer - visual style or console style.

Visual Installation

Launch your favorite or standard file manager like thunar or nautilus and browse to the folder where the AdobeAIRInstaller.bin has been saved.

• Right click on the file and choose 'Properties' in the context menu
• Set 'Execute' permissions and confirm modifications with OK
• Rename file into AdobeAIRInstaller
• Double click and follow the instructions

Using the console

• Open a terminal like xterm
• Change into the directory where you stored the download
• Run this command:
  [code]chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin[/code]
• Now run this command:
  [code]sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin[/code]

The normal installer will open, install it. From now whenever you download a .air file, just double click it and it will be installed.

Troubleshooting

In case that the installation does not start properly, try to install via console. This gives you more details about the reasons. Should you run into something like this:

[code]AdobeAIRInstaller.bin: 1: Syntax error: "(" unexpected[/code]

Double check the execute permission of the installer file and try again.