Debian Wheezy : Running in VMware Fusion 4.1

Note: The following applies to Debian Sid as well.

Here is some information on how I could get Debian Wheezy to run successfully in VMware Fusion 4.1.

The installation itself was uneventful. Once Wheezy installed, I proceeded to unpack VMware Tools, and run the installation script. However, the version of VMware Tools that comes with VMware Fusion 4.1 does not work properly with kernel 3.2.x.

After a few failed attempts at patching the code and trying again, I uninstalled VMware Tools. I decided to try open-vm-tools instead.

Here is the sequence of steps that I executed (as root, of course).

• apt-get update
• apt-get install build-essential
• apt-get install open-vm-tools

You will see some errors about modules not being available. It is normal. Please ignore them, and proceed.

• apt-get install open-vm-dkms

The above should install dkms itself as a dependency. By the way, dkms is a system that can install dynamically loadable kernel modules. The above package contains the source code of the Open VM Tools kernel modules.

• cd /usr/src
• ls

You should see a directory for open-vm-tools. Please note the version number, which is the part after open-vm-tools-. Now, issue the command

• dkms install open-vm-tools/<version>

where you should substitute the version number that you found out above. That installs the necessary kernel modules. It is necessary to create an appropriate entry in /etc/fstab for your host Mac's share. An example entry is shown here.

.host:/mac    /mnt/hgfs/mac    vmhgfs    defaults    0  1

For X automatic re-sizing and copy-and-paste between OS X and Wheezy, you have to install one last package.

• apt-get install open-vm-toolbox

That is it. Now, reboot the virtual image, and enjoy your Debian Wheezy with better host integration!