VM /ETC

VMware announced specific Linux packages are now available for it’s VM Tools not too long ago. They also introduced the  Operating System Specific Packages (OSP) Home Page where “you will be able to search, browse and download VMware Tools software packaged in the native package format (e.g. rpm, deb etc) for select supported Operating Systems.” At VMworld 2008 I attended a session about VMware’s Roadmap for Linux that promised distribution packages were on the horizon, so it’s great to see them so quickly.

VMware currently has Linux packages for:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (including GA and Update Releases 1 through 7)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (including GA and Update Releases 1 and 2)
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 (including GA and Service Pack releases 1 through 4)
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 (including GA and Service Pack releases 1 and 2)
• Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (including GA and Update Release 8.04.1)

VMware has created a guide for installing the OSPs (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/osp_install_guide.pdf), but after reading this PDF I was a little disappointed in the complicated process described inside. It made me curious if it could really be that hard, for Ubuntu for example, when so many packages are readily available via the Synaptic Package Manager. So, I decided to check for myself and the result was the screen shot image in this post. Click it for a larger view.

I haven’t actually tried an install from Synaptic yet, but I am definitely excited about the package availability! Let me know if you’ve already used Synaptic, Yum, apt-get, or any other native Linux package management tool to successfully install VMware Tools.

In my opinion, this is a huge advancement in the automation of Linux guest administration, and it will make installing and  keeping VMware Tools updated for Linux operating systems almost as easy as in Windows guests!

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