Fixing VMWare Jaunty guest vmmouse support

[sabi]

Can you run

vmmouse_detect && echo yes || echo no

and see if it prints yes or no?

The response was "no".

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse version 1:12.5.1-4ubuntu5

Again, tried the command provided, same result "no".

Other ideas?

Thanks,
sabi

[jdong]

Whoa that is crazy. The detector doesn't believe you are inside vmware. Can you attach a lshal output?

[sabi]

I should mention that when I installed vmware tools I received some errors, such as:

make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmhgfs-only/page.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmhgfs-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-11-generic'
make: *** [vmhgfs.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmhgfs-only'
Unable to build the vmhgfs module.

No drivers for X.org version: 7.5.0.

but then at the end of the install I got:

The configuration of VMware Tools 7.8.5 build-156735 for Linux for this running
kernel completed successfully.

Does any of this have any bearing on the issue?

Thanks,
sabi

[sabi]

Whoa that is crazy. The detector doesn't believe you are inside vmware. Can you attach a lshal output?

Jadong,

When I try to embed the output I get a database error message.

Earlier, each time I submitted a reply I also received a database error message. I believe the web server is experiencing problems.

Will try again in a few minutes.

Thanks,
sabi

[sabi]

Jdong,

I just uninstalled vmware tools. Then, using Synaptic, I installed the open source vmware tools. The result, the mouse problem is fixed ! Also, the copy/paste from the guest to host works. However, when I attempt to drag a file from the guest workspace to a host workspace I get an error.

This is all very confusing to me. Are the open source vmware tools equivalent in function to the commercial vmware tools? And why does the open source vmware tools work correctly "out-of-the-box" ?

Thanks for your support,
sabi

[jdong]

Jdong,

I just uninstalled vmware tools. Then, using Synaptic, I installed the open source vmware tools. The result, the mouse problem is fixed ! Also, the copy/paste from the guest to host works. However, when I attempt to drag a file from the guest workspace to a host workspace I get an error.

I bet it's because our version of the VMWare tools do not support the new DnD abilities. Try installing official VMWare tools, then removing /etc/X11/xorg.conf. VMWare's modifications to the X config may be messing up autodetection for some reason.

This is all very confusing to me. Are the open source vmware tools equivalent in function to the commercial vmware tools? And why does the open source vmware tools work correctly "out-of-the-box" ?

the FOSS tools may lag slightly out of date compared to the official ones, for various reasons.

[Dedoimedo]

Sabi, did you install build-essential package before compiling?
You need gcc, make, headers, etc before you can compile.
Dedoimedo

[jdong]

vmhgfs is not compatible with the 2.6.28 kernel's API; this is known. Its failure isn't fatal though -- the rest of Tools works fine without it.

[sabi]

Jdong,

Well, too many bizarre things happening. I started over. Just to close this saga, these are the steps I followed from your suggestions.

1. Created new vmware guest using RC1
2. Ran update manager
3. Installed build-essential
4. Installed VMWare tools 7.8.5 build-156735 (from VMWare workstation 6.5.2)
5. Installed xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse version 1:12.5.1-4ubuntu5 and mdetect
6. Ran /usr/bin/vmware-user
7. Added /usr/bin/vmware-user to startup applications
8. Restart

This resulted in normal (vmware fashion) mouse operation. Copy/Paste to/from guest/host works as expected. The file drag and drop is still problematic with the following error:

Unable to open: File "/proc/fs/vmblock/mountPoint/0ba02566/Payment_schedule.ods" line 1: Syntax error.

Since my primary concern was mouse and copy/paste operations, I am satisfied at this point.

Maybe the other issues will resolve in the future.

Thanks for your efforts.
sabi

PS: Spoke too soon, bizarre is back. When I right-click in a terminal window, a new terminal window opens. May or may not be related to this, but still bizarre.

[jdong]

PS: Spoke too soon, bizarre is back. When I right-click in a terminal window, a new terminal window opens. May or may not be related to this, but still bizarre.

That is due to some WEIRD mouse click bug where right click context menus, mainly in Unity mode, cause the first item to be magically selected (which is New Terminal in this case)