Are you just a Windows 7 user and and you need to use Ubuntu Linux programs? Well, maybe a software can help you…named VMware Player, a free software which lets you evaluate new or pre-release software contained in virtual machines. What’s more, it allows users easily run virtual machines on Windows 7, Vista, XP or Linux PC. Today we will take a look at how to run Ubuntu in Windows 7 with VMware Player.
Getting Started
Just download and install VMware Player (link below). Alought it is a free download, it requires registration.
Maybe you will see some prompts about installing drivers(but it is not absolute)…just approve them. Once finished installing, you will have to restart your computer.
Install Ubuntu
Once you have installed VMware Player and downloaded Ubuntu, you’re ready to setup Ubuntu. Just open VMware Player and click the link “Create a New Virtual Machine.”
Here you can install Ubuntu from a disk or directly from the ISO file you can download (link below). This is the simplest method if you just want to use Ubuntu in VMware Player. However, if you do have an Ubuntu disk, then feel free to choose that instead. Once you’ve selected your install media, VMware Player will automatically detect Ubuntu and will show that it will be installed with Easy Install. Simply click “next” to continue.
Type in your full name, user name, and password (which are required).
Note: The username can only have lowercase characters and numbers.
Note: Tthe password must be at least 8 characters long.
After that, choose a name for your virtual machine and select where to save it. Simply click “next” to accept the defaults.
You can adjust how large you want your virtual hard drive to be (the default is 20Gb, but you can choose a different size if you wish).
Note: Actually the entire 20Gb will not be used up on your hard drive initially. Ours only took up 3.6Gb with a clean install, but this will increase as you install programs and save files.
Now you can review your settings and change them if you wish, or simply click “Finish” to start installing Ubuntu…
Now VMware player will install Ubuntu without any further input. The window may show cryptic commands, but don’t worry, as you don’t have to do anything else to install Ubuntu.
During the installation, you may be prompted to download and install VMware tools for Linux. Just click “Download” and the tools will automatically download and install (though you may have to approve the UAC prompt).
Of course, VMware will continue installing Ubuntu even while the tools are downloading. You will be presented with your Ubuntu login screen after the install is finished. In this example, the full install took about 30 minutes.
Select your user name, then enter your password to access Ubuntu.
Welcome to your Ubuntu desktop!
How to Install VMware Tools
Generally VMware Player will automatically install the VMware tools into Ubuntu during the initial setup…but sometimes this doesn’t work. At least…in our test, the tools failed to install during the Ubuntu setup because our internet connection was down. So if it doesn’t, you should follow the following steps to install them.
In order to install the tools, click “VM” and then select “Install VMware Tools” in the menu.
In the File Browser window, double click on the VMwareTools icon (which looks like a box that says tar.gz on the front).
Then the compressed file will open. Click the “Extract” button at the top of the window.
Now choose where to save the files. Simply click “Desktop” on the left, and then click “Extract”.
This will take a moment…wait for a while patiently. When the files are extracted, click “Close”.
Then click the “Applications” menu at the top of the screen, choose “Accessories”, and then click “Terminal”.
Enter the following to access the files you unzipped before:
cd ./Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib
Now enter:
sudo bash
Then enter your password when prompted.
Note: Tthe password will not show while you are typing it in…just type it in and press Enter when completed.
Now we can install the VMware tools. To achieve this, enter:
./vmware-install.pl
and then simply press enter at the prompts to accept the defaults. It should ask a total of 5 questions, and just press enter at all of them.
Then it may ask the following questions about documentation files…just press enter again at each prompt.
Now the installation is completed. Since you will still need to configure the tools, simply enter “yes” at the prompt to automatically do that.
It may ask you to enable an experimental backup feature…simply entered “no” at this prompt.
It will want to setup the graphics configurations. Enter “yes” at the prompt. Your screen may flicker or go black momentarily while it is changing these settings.
You will see the following message when the install is completed at last.
Finally restart Ubuntu by clicking on the button with your username at the top right, and then selecting Restart from the menu.
Login to Ubuntu as before and your setup is complete once your virtual machine has rebooted.
Integrate Ubuntu with Windows 7
Normally you can already use all of Ubuntu’s tools and features directly from the Ubuntu desktop in VMware Player. But you need to activate Unity mode if you would like to use your Ubuntu programs seamlessly in Windows. Click “VM” and then Unity Mode in the VMware Player Menu.
Now you will have an Ubuntu menu right above your Windows 7 Start button.
The Ubuntu windows will have a border and VMware logo on them by default.
In order to change this, click “VM” and then “Settings”, select the “Options” tab, and uncheck the boxes “Show borders” and “Show badges” .
Now the windows will look just like they do in Ubuntu.
You can run Ubuntu windows side-by-side with Windows 7 windows…and can copy and paste, drag-and-drop between the windows, and more…The Ubuntu programs’ icons show up in the taskbar the same as normal Windows programs.
Now you can access all of the files in your Ubuntu virtual machine from the Ubuntu menu. Click “Other”, and then click “Computer” or “Home Folder”.
Note: This would work the exact same on any modern version of Windows, including all editions of XP and Vista. In this tutorial we used Ubuntu 9.10, but other recent editions should work the same.
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April 5, 2011
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