Installing VMware Player on Ubuntu 9.04

1. Install required packages build-essential and linux-headers

   sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

2. Download the latest VMware player e.g. VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.i386.bundle (download the bundle version, not the rpm one) and run it as root using gksudo. You'll get a graphical installer that installs VMware player for you.

   gksudo bash ./VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.i386.bundle

If nothing appears, you may need to make the file executable. You can do so with this command: chmod +x ./VMware-Player-2.5.1-126130.i386.bundle

After completion, VMware player is installed and should show up in the menu under Applications → System Tools → VMware Player.

Creating Virtual Machine installations

Creating A Windows XP Virtual Machine

1. Get a virtual machine image.
2. For Windows XP, download and unzip WindowsXPVirtualMachine.zip. This is a blank image ready to run Windows XP, using 384MB of RAM. Pop your Windows CD in the drive before continuing on to the next step.
3. Run VMware Player. Click Applications → System Tools → VMware Player. Choose Open an Existing Virtual Machine and select the .vmx file you extracted from the zip.

VMware Player will start to boot, and should automatically start from the Windows CD in your drive. Install Windows as normal.

When installation is complete, you'll have a working Windows XP install you can run nearly all desktop and server applications inside Ubuntu.

Creating other images

To create your own blank images - perhaps with more RAM, or to install a different OS, visit http://www.easyvmx.com. Choose the OS you want to run, an amount of RAM, and save and unzip the resulting zip file provided by the website. Then pop the CD for the OS you'd like to install in your CD drive.

You may also be interested a selection of images at http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/.

Improving Performance

You can improve performance by using the VMware/Tools.

• Download the latest VMware Workstation for Linux from http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/ and extract the windows.iso file containing the VMware tools.
• Edit edit your .vmx file pointing the CD-ROM to the windows.iso, and start the OS, an automated setup will guide you inside windows.

Downloading an Official Ubuntu "Appliance" to try Ubuntu as a virtual machine on a non-Ubuntu OS

Have you been thinking about running Ubuntu, but are afraid to take the "plunge"? Fear not, for you can use Ubuntu without installing it and without even rebooting!

Like any other VMware Player appliance, Ubuntu appliances are just a couple of files on your PC. All of your Ubuntu software will be contained within these files and not on your PC. It is possible to copy files to your PC or to save them to your PC from a program running under the appliance, but you must specifically do so. For more information on using a VMware appliance, please consult VMware's documentation at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/player_pubs.html.

Official Ubuntu VMware Player appliances are available for download. They are not very well documented in the download page, but are available on Ubuntu's ISV-Image server: http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/. There you'll find appliances for Ubuntu from version 5.10 up till version 7.10.