RE: [owl-users] VMWare tools

Alex/All,

Thanks for the information that works.

To answer your question:
> VMWare tools temporarily show up on the cdrom, after you tell vmware to
> install vmware tools,

Do you mean that VMware provides a virtual CD-ROM that has the tools on
it?  (I am just trying to guess.)

	Yes, when one tells vmware to "Install VMware tools", the software
shows up on the virtual cdrom device (hopefully already created).   It is
usually a .tar.gz file.  You uncompress and unzip it.  The zip file has the
source code of the VMware tools, and you have to compile them.  There is a
perl script to compile and install VMware tools, called vmware-install.pl.


I really didn't see much need to install VMware tools, since its major
benefit is to provide better video and mouse drivers, and "shared" folders
with the host machine.   Since we don't have X-Windows in owl, the better
video and mouse drivers aren't helpful.

Since this email chain doesn't actually show the error codes, I tried
installing the tools.  The following is the error message that occurs:


Searching for a valid kernel header path...
The path "" is not a valid path to the 2.6.18-238.5.1.el5.028stab085.2.owl2
kernel headers.

WARNING: This program cannot compile any modules for the following
reason(s)...

- This program could not find a valid path to the gcc binary.  Please ensure
that the gcc binary is installed on this sytem.

- This program could not find a valid path to the kernel headers of the
running
kernel.  Please ensure that the header files for the running kernel are
installed on this sytem.

I attempted to give it the path /usr/bin, but that doesn't work.


Can you advise on the solution?

-Robert Harris from VA

-----Original Message-----
From: Solar Designer [mailto:solar_at_private] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 6:09 PM
To: owl-users_at_private
Subject: Re: [owl-users] VMWare tools

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 05:44:48PM -0500, Robert Harris wrote:
> VMWare tools temporarily show up on the cdrom, after you tell vmware to
> install vmware tools,

Do you mean that VMware provides a virtual CD-ROM that has the tools on
it?  (I am just trying to guess.)

> The /etc/fstab file shows a /dev/cdrom device, but that doesn't exist.

If you need this, you're supposed to make /dev/cdrom a symlink to your
actual CD drive device - e.g., with:

ln -s hdc /dev/cdrom

or:

ln -s scd0 /dev/cdrom

(see dmesg to determine the device name to use here).

Then simple "mount /mnt/cdrom" should work.

Alexander