Manual installation of VMware Tools

If you are using Mint in EECS 182, you should first try the short method. If that fails for some reason, let us know of course. But, you can do it the long way, as VMware advises. The Short Method was a script we wrote to automate the task. With the long method, it will take longer, but you will learn a few tricks, such as filename completion, in interacting with the Terminal in Mint.

Double-click on the Terminal icon to open it. Type the following into the terminal on the prompt. If you get prompted for a password, enter "eecs182" for the password. Don't type the "%" in the following. We use "%" to represent the prompt from the Terminal.

% cd /tmp
% sudo cp /media/VM" followed by "ESC" key (don't hit ENTER till told). 

Hitting ESC is a shortcut to complete the file name as:

% sudo cp /media/VMWare\ Tools

Continue typing "/VM" and hit ESC again. It should complete the filename as:

% sudo cp /media/VMWware\ Tools/VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz

(or something similar to your version of VMwareTools)

Continue by hitting [SPACE] key followed by "/tmp" followed by enter.

% sudo cp /media/VMWware\ Tools/VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz /tmp

Now hit [ENTER]. "cp" is copy command. It copies the file "/media/VMware Tools/VMwareTools..tar.gz" to /tmp.

Notice that in Mint, forward slashes are used to separate directories. Backward slashes are used before any space characters in file names. This is a convention in all Linux/Mac OS systems. Windows, unfortunately, uses the backslashes to separate directory names.

Type "ls" followed by [ENTER]. You should see the following. If for some reason you don't, do in terminal on command prompt:

% cd /tmp
% ls

The main thing we are looking for is the .tar.gz file in the folder. The "ls" command works exactly like the "dir" command on Windows. You can also type "dir".

Now on the prompt in the Terminal, type

 % tar xzf VM followed by ESC key. You should see the following:

tar xzf VMwareTools-[version].tar.gz

Hit [ENTER].

Do "ls" [ENTER].

% ls

You should see "vmware-tools-distrib" appear in the listing. "cd" to that directory as follows:

% cd vmware-tools-distrib [ENTER]

Do "ls" followed by [ENTER]. You should see a file "vmware-install.pl" in the lisitng. Execute that as follows:

% sudo ./vmware-install.pl [ENTER]

The sudo command tells the system that you want to execute vmware-install.pl as a super-user (administrator).

On the password prompt, if asked, enter "eecs182".

If you get an error that vmware-install.pl is not found, carefully check that you entered a period followed by forward slash before vmware-install.pl and that you are in the correct directory.

It will ask you a bunch of questions about installation directories. Just hit [ENTER] to all the questions.

If all goes well, you have installed vmware tools. You can delete the temporary files we created by going to the folder /tmp if you like.