Tag Archives: 12.04

Install VMWare Player on Ubuntu 12.04

As I expected a new system means a new set of problems. The first application that encounter problem with Pangolin is VMWare Player 4.0.3. The installation of VMWare Player was smooth though, there was no problem occurred. For a while I felt relief, “yes, I can use VMWare Player tomorrow”. The problem showed when I tested to open one of the VMWare image. The VMWare was trying to install additional functions, and it failed.

After searching on the Internet, I found this reply from a thread from VMWare forum. Basically, he recommended to apply a patch in 5 steps. (Get the patch file here)

  1. Un-tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar to a directory you can write to (eg /tmp, /var/tmp or your desktop or home directory) – this creates a directory vmnet-only
  2. Apply the attached patch to the un-tarred source (run patch in the directory from step 1 – the patch file was created from the parent directory of vmnet-only)
  3. Save the original source tar file as /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar.orig
  4. create a new /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar from the patched source (with ‘sudo tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar vmnet-only’ in the directory from step 1)
  5. Start the vmware player/workstation/….

So, these were what I did.

I extracted the “/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar” to “/tmp” folder.

tar xvf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar -C /tmp

Copy the patch file (vmnet.diffs) to “/tmp” folder and then apply the patch.

patch -p0 < vmnet.diffs

Back up the original “vmnet.tar” as “vmnet.tar.orig”.

sudo cp vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.orig

Create a new “vmnet.tar” from “/tmp” folder.

sudo tar cvf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar vmnet-only

Trigger the kernel update by trying to open a VMWare image again. At this time the update went smoothly, and the image was opened.

Transition 2012 Part 2: Pangolin Rules My Notebook (Officially)

It took about half-an-hour to install Pangolin on my notebook, as usual from Ubuntu. Yup, It’s a clean install. I removed the Lynx and installed Pangolin. I saw from the internet, many people tried to upgrade, but took hours to finish, and sometimes broke some already running well application. So, I prefer avoid this problem.

Unlike Lynx, Pangolin is using another desktop environment, even though still based on Gnome. Pangolin is using Unity, as seen below.

It’s totally different from previous desktop environment. It looks nice. It’s very nicely done. But, different desktop environment means different ways of doing things.

There is no more main menu on the top bar, even though on the left side of the top bar looks the same as before. Now the menu is in the Ubuntu button on the top-left corner of the screen. Once click on the button, a panel will be shown, which is showing latest application or files used, list of installed applications, list of music, and list of videos. On the window itself, there is a search box for me to find applications or, maybe, ever opened files. It is similar to Gnome-Do on my previous system, and I think I like Gnome-Do better. Anyway, it’s a good improvement.

On the left side of the screen there is a launcher bar, which holds selected applications for quick run the application without finding it in the application list. It remind me to my AWN on my previous system. So, that’s fine for me. The one that I surprise me (in a good way) is the ability of the launcher bar and all other on-screen notifications to adapt to the wallpaper colour. I like this functionality very much. 🙂

My impression for my Pangolin is good enough for now. The real test will start when I’m installing my applications, and how good my applications run on top of Pangolin.

So, King Pangolin, congratulations for your succession. Rule wisely and I hope the best from you. 🙂