Hi, it would not be a problem for me to install a software package in Linux. However, the problem is that: supposed I'm using Windows XP and I've installed a Linux virtual machine on the XP environment, how can I install additional software packages on that VM? Can it possibly be done at all? Thank you for any suggestions.

You can do it exactly the same way. The new packages will get installed in the space occupied by your virtual machine. I have done this a lot of times.

Can you please be more specific? For example, if I want to install an RPM package in the real Linux OS, first I would have to "cd" to the directory containing that package. With the VM, I don't think I can do that because I have to store my RPM package somewhere in Windows and I can't access Windows files from the VM, right?

Like muasif80 says, you do it exactly the same way. If you want to install an RPM on the "real Linux" then you boot the "real Linux". If you want to install an RPM on a virtual machine, then it stands to reason that you boot the virtual machine.

It may be the reason that you haven't realised that the virtual machine is just another machine. It's not a client of Windows. It's not a program running in XP that you install upgrades to using Windows. No, it *really is* a separate operating system running parallel with Windows that has absolutely nothing to do with the running Windows operating system other than they happen to be running on the same machine. The virtualised Linux is not a program running under Windows.

- if u have internet connection & configure your vm network interface bridged to your real interface, set the vm linux gw,dns,ip correctly then you can access internet using vmware[Download the software directly to vm] or if you already downloaded on your windows n' you want to share it to linux on vm, you can use samba for file sharing.

- in your case , the most easy way is copy it to flashdrive then
mount it to linux on vm.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I've just found out that I can use the "Shared folder" function provided by VM to address my problem. I mean, I can just store all the packages I need to install in that folder and access it from VM under the /mnt directory (according to the "Help" file of the VM that I read). The problem is that after I enabled the folder sharing function the "Properties" button on the "Shared Folders" window is still disabled, making in impossible for me to choose which folder to share. Anyone knows why?

install vmware tools first