Installing VMware tools on lenny
This has been tested on Debian lenny running on VMware server 2.0.
Install kernel headers and some tools used to install VMware tools:
apt-get install binutils cpp gcc make psmisc linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Mount the cdrom drive. Make sure you have mounted the VMware tools virtual cd from the host before moving on.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/
Extract VMware tools to the tmp directory:
tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/VMwareTools-x.x.x.tar.gz
The filename depends on the host software/OS.
Unmount the virtual cd:
umount /mnt
Lenny is configured to use gcc 4.3 but WMware tools requires gcc 4.1. Both versions of gcc are installed by default so we'll temporarily use 4.1 while building VMware tools:
ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 /usr/bin/gcc
Make sure you run the following command from the Console, don't try to run it using SSH because the network will be restarted and the installation will fail.
cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
Accept the defaults for every question. Make sure you're located inside the vmware-tools-distrib folder when executing the vmware-install.pl script or the installation will fail.
After the build has completed, configure the system to use gcc 4.3 again:
ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.3 /usr/bin/gcc
To finish the installation and start the virtual machine with VMware tools installed, reboot the virtual machine:
reboot
June 3rd, 2009 - 16:25
Tks! It helped much!
February 12th, 2010 - 08:48
Great! Wors fine! THX A LOT!
October 18th, 2010 - 13:57
There is a better way installing ‘open-vm-tools’:
1. Adding ‘contrib’ and ‘non-free’ to ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’
2. apt-get update
3. apt-get install module-assistant open-vm-source open-vm-tools
4. module-assistant prepare
5. module-assistant build open-vm-source
6. module-assistant install open-vm-source
7. reboot
August 20th, 2011 - 18:08
as of 2011 this does not work for me. Either the script cannot find the “gcc” program, or the 2nd option by wolf says “unable to locate package”
I continue my quest to install vmware tools. few hours thus far!
(why dont they just make some installer)
January 19th, 2012 - 09:39
Works for me thank. on ESXi4.1