Sonic Geekery

A quick tip for anyone having issues installing VMware Tools on an Ubuntu guest: 1) Inside the Ubuntu guest, open a terminal and update the apt package list. $ sudo apt update 2) Install open-vm-tools-desktop. $ sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop 3) Restart. $ sudo reboot

1) The desktop background appears and nothing else: Most likely the virtual machine can't access the system resources it needs.  This can be caused by: a) Applications running on the host operating system. b) Resource allocation in the virtual machine settings. c) Both a and b. a) If you're like me you have Chrome open with a large number of tabs that you have a tendency to forget about.  If that's the case, close Chrome and any other application that can be resource hungry and try again. b) Look at Memory, Processor, and Graphics settings for the virtual machine as well as the system requirements for both host and guest operating system.  If you have have more than enough to run both at the same time, gently adjust the settings and try again.  Also try turning of 3d acceleration in the graphics settings.  I have so far not seen a problem leaving it enabled, but that doesn't mean issues don't exist.  Some versions of operating systems are more resour

1) Download the flavor of Ubuntu you wish to install from https://www.ubuntu.com/download.  For this tutorial, I'm using Kubuntu. 2) On VMware Workstation 15 Player's Home screen, click Create a New Virtual Machine. 3) Select Use ISO image and browse for the .iso you downloaded.  VMware will show that it detected Ubuntu and will use Easy Install.  Click Next. 4) Enter your desired username and password.  Click Next. 5) Enter in the Name and Location you would like for the virtual machine.  You can also leave either of those fields as the default.  Click Next. 6) Since the minimum disk size requirement for both Kubuntu and Ubuntu is currently 25GB, set the Maximum disk size to 30GB or so.  Select Store virtual disk as a single file and click Next. 7) Click on Customize Hardware. 8)  Since the minimum memory requirement for both Ubuntu and Kubuntu is 2GB, set the memory for the virtual machine to an amount between 2GB and 50% of the amount of

1) Visit http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html 2) Click Download and the download should immediately start Note:  You'll notice the file downloaded has the extension .bundle.  No need to worry though... As you can see, the downloaded .bundle file is basically a bash script with a fancy extension. 3) Open a terminal and make the VMware .bundle file executable 4) Execute it! 5) A graphical installer should appear.  Start off by accepting terms in the license agreements and clicking Next. 6) Join VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program or don't (it defaults to No) and click Next. 7) Enter a license key if you have one or leave it blank to use the free version and click Next. 8) Click Install. 9) The installer will keep you updated as it uninstalls older versions, copies files, etc. 10) Finally, click Close when it finishes. 11) When you open VMware Workstation 15 Player for the first