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Installing Mandrake 10.1 into a VMware Virtual Machine

UPDATED 12-07-2004

Sorry fellow bloggers. This posting is for a few geek friends that are trying to shoehorn Mandrake 10.1 into a VMware Virtual Machine on Windows XP host (although same probably goes for a Linux host as well).
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Getting Mandrake 10.1 CE installed under VMware on a Windows host can be a bit tricky. Although the installation proceeds perfectly normal, getting video afterward that is beyond useful becomes much harder. If you are staring at a funky screen or perhaps an 800x600 256 color resolution, you'll need to install VMware tools and also make a few changes to one configuration file.

Before starting - it will help to boot into a normal VGA situation, otherwise you'll be trying to do work in a funky 4-screen strange looking frame buffer.

Reboot your newly install Mandrake machine and at the boot screen press the ESCAPE key and then type:

linux vga=normal (and obviously press return/enter)

Login as root and then type:

# init 3
# urpmi pciutils
# urpmi kernel-source-2.6-2.6.8.1-12

Note that the kernel sources are required to install vmware-tools.

If URPMI complains during the above, make sure that your cdrom/dvd is mounted or selected by VMWARE in your machine configuration. If it is and it's still not seeing your cdrom/dvd, type:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

And then try urpmi pciutils, etc, again. Once you've installed your kernel sources and pciutils...


Go to the VM menu of VMware and choose Install VMware tools. Next...

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cd /mnt/cdrom
# cp vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz /tmp
# cd /tmp
# tar -zxf vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz

#cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/bin

You will next need to use a text editor of your choice, such as vi, joe, nano or maybe pico.

# vi vmware-config-tools.pl

Then, find this bit of code... (if you are using vi and are a newbie, scroll down to around line 3051)

$xversionAll = direct_command(shell_string(xserver4()) . ' -version 2>&1') =~
/XFree86 Version (\d+\.\d+\.?\d*)/ ? $1: '0.0.0';

# The assumption here is that anything from X.org is 4.4.0. We have to do this
# right now because 'X -version' on X.org's server doesn't have a reliable version
# string. Maybe it will once it settles down.
if ($xversionAll eq "0.0.0") {
$xversionAll = direct_command(shell_string(xserver4()) . ' -version 2>&1') =~
/X.org Foundation/ ? '4.4.0' : '0.0.0';

Change the part...

$xversionAll = direct_command(shell_string(xserver4()) . ' -version 2>&1') =~
/XFree86 Version (\d+\.\d+\.?\d*)/ ? $1: '0.0.0';

to...

$xversionAll = direct_command(shell_string(xserver4()) . ' -version 2>&1') =~
/XFree86 Version (\d+\.\d+\.?\d*)/ ? $1: '4.4.0';

Newbie VI note: to delete the '0.0.0' in the above text press the [DEL] key to enter delete mode and delete over the offending numbers. Press [INSERT] key to insert '4.4.0' then press [ESCAPE]; then type ':w!" to force a write and then ':q' to exit

Save the file after making the above edit.


THEN at the root prompt:

# cd ..
# ./vmware-install.pl

You can then just hit enter to everything and accept all of the defaults.

Once the module compiles, you'll be given a choice of screen resolutions to choose. In my case I use 1024x768, and odds are that will work best for most situations. After vmware-config is finished, go ahead and shutdown and reboot. Your video at that point should be normal.

posted by majqa @ 7:43 PM