Until this moment I was starting to think to myself: "why do I put myself through this pain?" "Why do I attempt to install Linux and Linux applications every now and then?"
Then, suddenly, it works!
And you feel that you conquered the world.
Okay, I am writing this for myself as I know that I will have to do this again in the future.
The task at hand: Getting VMware Studio to work properly.
My personal opinion about the entire adventure: This application was obviously developed by a person that is hardcore Linux and considers Windows a scourge on the landscape.
I arrived at this opinion after noting in the readme that the OpenSSH engine is not known to work properly for the installation on any operating system other than WinXP.
(at that moment the software tester in me said: "duh" - security enforcement is next to nothing)
Anyway - back to the task at hand.
Installing VMware Server (1.0.6) on Ubuntu 8.04 (64-bit)
First of all - I would like to thank the Ubuntu community for all the documentation. Tons of it. My only problem, it gets really confusing and hard to follow. I ended up with instructions from three sources and even dribbled this down into its most basic steps (fewest possible).
Second, if you need the gory details - please reference the links that I note.
Let us begin:
Download and install Ubuntu.
During the install, enable the OpenSSH server.
Oh, and set a root password (I found it all goes better in the end - as VMware Server wants you to use root anyway)
sudo passwd root
Then go here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Server/AMD64
and do the following (you only need to use sudo if you are not logged in as root):
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` xinetd
sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` xinetd gcc-4.1 g++-4.1
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs libc6-i386
Then download VMware Server and put in under /tmp
tar xvzf VMware-server*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Please read the prompts.
There is a build error at one point, do not accept the default no, say 'yes' else you will be stuck and install fails.
Also, I freely declined VM NATting - the default is on. why? I ask.
Now, before installing the Server interface we need to fix something, else the MUI install will fail.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Server
mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1-old
Now, we can download the VMware Server MUI and put that under /tmp
tar xvzf VMware-mui*.tar.gz
cd vmware-mui-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
After install completes the service will not start properly, guess what? Another fix, because the startup script is broken.
http://www.go2linux.org/vmware-server-on-debian-etch
obtain the patch from here: http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/en/httpd.vmware.diff
and place it under /tmp
cd /
patch -b -p0 < /tmp/httpd.vmware.diff
Then start and query the Management service
sudo /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware start
sudo /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware status
Now, on your desired remote client machine be sure to download the VMware Server Client package and install it.
Only the latest VMware Server 2 has a built in web management console.
(and its installation is supposedly far less painful)
