Install VMWare Tools on Debian/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze)

Created: 21 May 2011 | Written by Patrik Forsberg | Print

Install VMWare Tools on Debian/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze)

This is for VMWare Tools for VMWare ESXi 4.x.

This was a bit of a hassle.. before I figured it out..
here it is it it's simplicity

First install the needed packages

aptitude update
aptitude install make
aptitude install gcc-4.3 (check /proc/version which gcc version your kernel were compiled with!)
aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

If you're installing the tools for VMWare Workstation 8 you might need

aptitude install libglib2.0-0

too or you might get that vmware-config-tools.pl can't find "GCC" for some reason.
now mount the vmware tools cd from vmware

mount /media/cdrom (this could be /media/cdrom0)
cd /usr/src
tar xvzf /media/cdrom/VMwareTools-8.3.7-341836.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl

Install VMWare Tools on centos (SME server 8.0)

Mount the cd for vmware-tools from console
On commandline running as root mount it in centos

mount /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
cd /usr/src
tar xvzf /media/cdrom/VMwareTools-8.3.7-341836.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl

To get vmware-tools to autostart in centos

ln -s /etc/init.d/vmware-tools /etc/rc7.d/S90vmware-tools

Then start vmware-tools for the first time

/etc/init.d/vmware-tools start

Latest version of vmware-tools (for ESX) can be found here http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/latest/index.html

Category: Flavor - Linux