Getting Virtual Machine Additions (for Virtual Server) to work in Ubuntu 7.10

As anyone who’s worked with Linux distros under Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 can attest, getting them running is not particularly fun. Assuming you get past video problems, and can get your guest built, you then have to contend with limited support for vm-additions, CPU utilization problems, and the like. With apparent Linux-support improvements forthcoming, you might be able to wait. But if you can’t wait, it is possible to get the vm-additions installed and working in Ununtu. The key to making this work is converting the RPM’s to DEB packages via alien. Despite forum posts to the contrary, it will work.

After you’ve got your Ubuntu guest installed and running, grab a copy of the vm-additions and either mount the ISO in the guest via the management console, or just extract and copy the RPM’s over to the guest instance via SMB . After doing so, use alien to convert the RPM files to .DEB files, like so:

“$ sudo alien -k --script vmadd-full-2.0-1.i386.rpm”

Now that you’ve converted them, you should have *.DEB files in the directory you were working in. Go ahead and launch your package installer (e.g. GDebi Package Installer), and install vmadd-full-rhel_2.0-1_i386.deb. It should display a message to the effect of … “The Microsoft VM additions… (converted by alien)”. At this point, Gnome crashed on me (down at the bottom of VMAdditionsForLinux-README.txt in the vm-additions ISO it refers to having to exit the GUI). I’m telling you this because Gnome crashing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s broken.

If you’ve reached this point, for good measure check the install log.

It lives here… /var/log/vmadd-install.log

The only thing left to do would be test it…

“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd start”
“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd-heartbeat start
“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd-timesync start