Hi, I just got a copy of Mandrake 9.0 beta 2 and decided to try to learn a bit about linux. I also got the latest edition of VMWare for linux. Although installing Mandrake was a breeze, I am now completely stuck and don't know what to do next. I thought installing the VMware for Linux would at least give me some breathing space until I found my way around, but unfortunately I don't even know how to install it. Can someone tell me how to install Vmware in linux Manrake? I assume I need to enter some kind of command, but none of the doccumentation goes into any detail about what this command is. I tried double clicking on everything on the CD but to no avail, as nothing will launch. This seems to be a major draw back to Linux, since there is no inhereant ability to click and run. (I heard there was one in Lindows, but after bad reports I decided not to go for that one). It would still be very nice to be able to just double click on an application to install/run it, but in the mean time I will suffice with any explanation of the exact commands I need to install VMWare in Linux.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

R517

Ok, during OS installation it should've et you up with all "user-friendliness" that Mandy can offer, open up an Xterm/Konsole, become root with /bin/su - command it will ask you a password for root account type it in (you won't see any asterix on console -echo is turned off), now insert the CD with VMware and issue
mount /mnt/cdrom
it should mount the CD under /mnt/cdrom directory (mount point)
now change to this directory with
cd /mnt/cdrom
and list the files on CD with
ls
post the output here.
Note: to eject/unmount CD you need frst to get out of /mnt/cdrom for instance with cd
and to eject cdrom
issue
eject cdrom
it will unmount (umount command for future refence) CD and eject it.
I believe everything should work as was stated, fortunately for you Mandy comes with all this goodies stuff
Note#2: umount is not a typo.

Mmm thanks for the advice, I don't have a problem mounting my CD drive, I can see all the files on the Vmware CD, but have no idea how to install the program. I tried double clicking on everything, including the files that says 'install', but nothing happend. I spent hours trying to work out how to install things in Linux, i have no idea why it needs to be so hard. Is there any utility out there for Linux similar to an Ms installer that can easiliy install files and applications, no matter what file type they are? (Something for example that can look for executables within files and (if need be) extract/execute the appropriate installer? This would be a very useful utility to have for Linux and might pursuade me to ditch Windows for good.
Please help.

R517

I spent hours cursing Linux and wishing it were easy to install - as easy as Windows What form is VMWare in? Is the file suffix .rpm or is it .tar.gz? This makes a huge difference to how you install your software. This is not Windows (thankfully - I had to reinstall an XP system today at work because I happened to *touch* Partition Magic!!) Tell us the exact names of the files you are trying to install and commands can be given.


Acid_Kewpie once suggested that I buy a book. I was pretty annoyed with him for doing so - I read a lot of bloody books. I work with books. But - my Linux in a Nutshell is a godsend. It opened my eyes.

Thanks for the reply, the Cd is in uncompressed format - i.e just bog standard everyday files. I tried to list all the files but there seemed to be an awful lot of them and it would take up a lot of space here to print them all here. The only files I think are sigificant are the ones in the folder on the CD called 'install' there is something there that looks vaguely like a windows executable, but clicking on it achieves no results.
I'm going to spend some time looking on the web to see if I can find such a thing as an installer for Linux, it seems possible there should be something somewhere out there.
In the meantime if you can offer any advice on the standard installation proceedures, for installing VMware (or other programs) on Linux please feel free to do so. Don't assume too much though, as before installing Linux I have only ever seen it working once before, when a friend (unsucessfully) asked me to try configuring his Linux box to work on a network.

I got in a tizz about that too, made my excuses and left his house feeling somewhat embarassed.

To be honest If I am to run Linux permanatly I need access to some windows resources, as many of my customers communicate with me using windows based applications. There are also some windows based applcations I use that have no real or viable equivalent on Linux. But as we all know Windows sucks, so I would like to learn to live without it as much as I can.

Anyway thanks again for all your support.

Regards,

R517

Ok, can you post the output of ls on that install directory?
If the installation file is of filename.bin format then from the terminal in install directory run
./filename.bin
or
sh filename.bin
if the files there are rpms just as root
rpm -ihv filename-yada.yada.rpm
We need the output of ls to see the files and tell you how to proceed.
P.S. I see you mentioned file named "install" so from an Xterm/Konsole
cd /mnt/cdrom
ls
cd where/is/install
./install (or sh install)

Surely your Vmware files have suffixes?
What exactly are you trying to install? I know how you feel - v.frustrated and confused. If Linux is so stable and good, how come I can't load software? We've all been there - but if you want help, you must tell us what you are trying to install. YOU will get there in the end. Hopefully before Sunday

Thanks guys for your encouragement. Thanfully I got VMWare to isntall. Well I cheated slightly I managed to find a RPM which when I clicked on it did everything for me just like in Windows. Only problem is I have no idea how to run it now. In Mandrake most things seem to run by just entering the program name in the run command. But I tried this and nothing happend.
I read the help files and it said something about running the configuration program. I looked for this program and found the only likely candidate in the root directory. I tried clicking on this file but nothing happend.
Again I am lost.
However I was impressed by the software installer in Mandrake. If only everything was as easy to install as this!
Now all I have to do is figure out how to run the things I install and I will be almost there.
Perhaps someone here has Vmware for Linux (I think the trial is free to download) and can walk me through the post install set up and configration process? Maybe then I miight actually figure out how to run the program

Once more thanks again.

R517

First of all read up on rpm en tarballs (those files with the tar.gz extension) that should give you an insight on how to install most apps for linux.

first thing I had to learn in linux was to just leave the mouse in peace. Linux is not all clickable, and once you get used to that, I dare to say that you will actually prefer it that way.

Now after I install app, I usually end up with the same question you have: what next?
one command I learned quickly was locate
locate vmware should give you a nice idea on where the vmware files are stored (or any searchtool mandy has to offer or the information the rpm-tool mandy gives gives on the installed rpm)
you will probably find the docs as well where instructions on how to use your prog should reside.
Also just typing vmware might not work because linux can't find the progam in the location where you in (probably /home/yourname?)
try typing the whole location e.g.: /usr/bin/vmware

Hope you soon get the hang of it
Anne

Its quit a while since i installed VMWare!

Type in the console:

vmware-config.pl // to configurate it
vmware // to start it

There must be a html manual describing how to setup virtual networking
with VMWare. For beginning i would suggest you choose no networking.

Good Luck
SchwipSchwap

PS: For configurating i think you need root privileges
type in console: su (then enter your root pw, after configurating type: exit to leave the root thing)

Ok I finally did it I have a virual machine running inside linux (well I can boot to the bios at least). One think I didn't mention because you guys would probably think I was nuts was that I was trying to install a VMware Virtual Machine inside a Connectix virtual machine running Linux Mandrake (its not possible the other way around) the reason for this was that I was just interested in learning how to do things in Linux before installing it as my main OS - and I wanted to know if I could set-up a VMmachine properly so that I could still access all my Windows files etc, until such times as I feel confident enough with Linux not to need any windows stuff. (But if your running your own business that can be pretty hard). I also did it for the sheer hell of it. My plan was to set up a connectix virtual machine running Linux, on a host PC running XP pro, inside which I would install a VMWare virtual machine inside which I would install a third OS (possibly FreeBSD 5.0 which I also have). However I have encountered one small problem, I can boot as far as the looking for a bootable CD rom and the virtual machine inside the virtual machine finds the bootable CD image no problem, but then the VMware virtual machine spits out an error that says something like VMware internal monitor error, VMware setup cannot continue because error code bla bla (can't remeber the exact code). I assume this has something to do with the low graphics memory available inside the connectix virtual machine, or that the processor on the connectix virtual machine isn't up to the job. But anyway this is just fun and games now, if anyone can figure out a way to get the third os to boot inside this set up please let me know. Ultimately the experiment was worth it, as it taught me how to install programs in Linux. I think this was my first objective and hopefully things will become easier from here.
Anyway thanks everyone for you patience and consideration. I will continue to push to learn what is possible and will make a better assessment of Linux in a couple of months time when i have learned some more.

Regards to all.

Q

Ps

If anyone does figure out how to do this crazy thing, please let me know. Bare in mind I am using a very powerful system to do this, dual althlon 2100+ CPUs 1.5 Gig of physical Ram and 240 Gig of hard disk space - so resources aren't really an issue. I'm sure you will be able to tell from my experiment that I rather enjoy a challenge.

Sorry cant help you there!

I tried to start my existing W2k partition with VMWare
which dont really worked.

As VMWare emulates the whole hardware, i dont think that
an emulation on emulated hardware will work.

You can try Wine if you have access to your host XP pro
partition through connectix.

I'm using Mandrake Linux 9.0 now (not beta), and try to install VMWare 3.2 built 2230, but it gave out an vmmon error,
The message just as below :

************************************************************************
Trying to find a suitable vmmon module for your running kernel.

None of VMware Workstation's pre-built vmmon modules is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this script to try to build the vmmon module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes] yes

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

Argument "gcc (GCC) 3" isn't numeric in numeric ge (>=) at /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl line 1493, <STDIN> line 1.
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]
************************************************************************

and seems that my linux box don't have this directory.
I also don't know what to do now.......

To raid517 :
Hi there, raid. Some tips for you.
VMWare only best run in 16bit color mode, you will face error when put the color depth to 24bit or higher.

I used to install VMWare 3.2 on my Mandrake Linux 8.2 last week on a P3-866Mhz,512MB SDRAM machine. It work perfectly and the speed of my guest operating system (Windows 2000 Pro) even more faster than on a real machine.

Anything you don't know you can ask me.
1) I know how to configure samba to share my host file system.
2) Create virtual partition on Linux file system.

I'm still finding the solution for my problem.

***************************
Alex

I'm a newbie also.
***************************

I'm with Alex.........Mandrake 9...VMware same build....same error.

I'm with you guys as well, I get the same error. I've directed it to my C++ directory, but it says that this directory doesn't contain a folder called "asm" "net" or something. Any ideas?