Re: [PLUG] VMware in Ubuntu repos?

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:00:00 -0400
> From: "Brian Stempin" <brian.stempin@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] VMware in Ubuntu repos?
> 
> So, it turns out that I was reading the packages file for the gutsy-partner
> repo.  After searching around the hardy repos, I discovered that I was also
> unable to locate this package.  After a while, I did a few google searches
> on how to install vmware-server on Hardy, and I got a series of responses
> like this one:
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=788169
> and this one:
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Server
> *None* of the results I found involved doing anything with apt-get.  All of
> them required downloading and compiling software directly from VMWare.
> Perhaps they've dropped support for it?

OK, so we are getting the same results then. :-/  It's not even that 
it's difficult to do, but a) I dislike going outside the packaging 
system and b) you have to recompile at every kernel update and the way 
the GUI handles that is terrible.

Once you've install the correct packages (which does NOT, NOT, NOT 
including doing "linux-headers-`uname -r`" [1]), it's simple enough to 
run 'sudo vmware-config.pl'.  The problem is that the GUI simply fails 
to start in such a case.  So unless you either Just Know what's 
happening or you try it from the CLI, you have no clue why it suddenly 
won't work.  IMO that's a serious bug that VMware should have fixed a 
long, long time ago, even via a trivial wrapper script. :-(

FWIW, my idea of the correct i386 packages is:
'aptitude install xinetd build-essential linux-headers-generic'

Then there are other issues such as missing symlinks and USB stuff that 
the script in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=788169 handles. 
But it does commit the cardinal `uname -r` sin.

Later,
JP
[1] The "linux-headers-`uname -r`" thing drives me totally nuts and I 
see it everywhere.  That installs the headers for the currently running 
kernel only, so you have to manually re-do it every time you update the 
kernel.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  The correct method is to use the 
meta-packages that exist expressly for this purpose: either 
linux-headers-generic for workstation or linux-headers-server.  (Sigh, 
or linux-headers-`uname -r | cut -d'-' -f3` if that really makes you happy.)
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|        jp{at}jpsdomain{dot}org
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
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