VMware ToolsForum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions Topic: VMware Tools started by: koikoi Posted by koikoi on Sep. 19 2007,04:49
It'd be nice to have (an extension for) precompiled VMware Tools* to improve the experience of those of us who want to have a small sandbox to play in.* - or I guess any virtualization extras package, but VMware Tools was recently open sourced so it may be easier. I've searched this forum and on Google for how to install Tools in DSL at all, and have found a bunch of people wondering the same thing, but no solution. IIRC a lot of things the Tools normally expect to find is missing in DSL (gcc/make/headers/etc.). Even if I tracked down and got all the appropriate files, it would balloon the slim install that's so appealing. However, the missing utilities aren't needed to use the tools, just to compile them. If someone with more DSL experience could build the modules and package them up as an extension, it would make using DSL in a virtual machine much nicer. Posted by thirdman on Nov. 21 2007,19:43
Odd... I followed the instructions here:< http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_newguest_tools_linux.html > and it worked just fine. I did it with DSL 3.1 and VMWare Workstation 5.5.3. Posted by koikoi on May 24 2008,20:18
Ah, that gets a little further - recent DSLs (I was trying the 4.x line) don't like giving any arguments to 'df', which breaks free space detection. By using DSL 3.1 (or circumventing the check in the installer), I could get vmware-install.pl to work. However, vmware-config-tools.pl said there were no preconfigured modules, and I'd have to compile them (back to the original concern that I'd have to install a bunch of other stuff - did you do this, or did Tools install cleanly for you? I've tried DSL 3.1, 4.2.5, and 4.3 with VMware Fusion 1.x and 2.0b1. Posted by curaga on May 25 2008,07:14
what's wrong with Qemu? It's a damn fine virtual machine, and I believe the binaries from their site should work just fine on DSL.
Posted by chaostic on May 25 2008,07:50
If df is a problem, are you using the busybox df, or do you have the gnu-utils.dsl installed or loaded? Check with
Anyway, if you said that the tools/headers are only needed for compiling, start dsl from cd, install all the needed tools/headers, compile with --prefix=/some/directory/or/drive/that/won't/be/erased/on/reboot (Flash, usb, or hd) then use the vm-tools from there, or package them for dsl/uci/unc, without needing the other tools Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on May 25 2008,18:41
koikoi: you'd probably need to compile them yourself
Using other vm solutions that also utilize qemu work pretty well should you not need all of vmware's features - virtualbox comes to mind. I haven't looked at the performance differences between the latest vm solutions though. Posted by curaga on May 25 2008,19:45
Well, I probably am biased, having only used Qemu and Bochs, but to me the biggest advantage of Qemu is that you got an instant VM; not that you need to launch a config app, create a virtual HD, create a VM with specifics, fiddle with this button and that option selection. I prefer just instant qemu -cdrom myiso.iso.
Posted by koikoi on May 28 2008,04:46
Nothing wrong with Qemu, I'm just biased towards VMware (disclaimer: employee). AFAIK, though (and I may easily be wrong), Qemu only has rudimentary guest tools support, which is what I'm asking about - I want DSL as the guest, not as the host. I don't want to go off topic too much, but Fusion makes it pretty painless to create a new virtual machine.
Whatever's the default. I didn't know it was busybox - that would explain it. Sounds like the answer is that there's no easy way. Time to go poke at compiling Tools, I guess... |