How To Install VMWare Tools on Ubuntu

  1. Update the server 
    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
  2. Change Directory 
    cd /media/cdrom
  3. Copy the tar file to your /tmp directory 
    sudo cp VM*.tar.gz /tmp
  4. Install Build tools if necessary 
    sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-server build-essential
  5. Change Directory 
    cd /tmp
  6. Expand the tar 
    sudo tar xzvf VM*.tar.gz
  7. Change Directory 
    cd vmware-tools-distrib
  8. To prevent a potential error in the install script on Ubuntu 11.10+, create a special directory 
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/lib64
  9. Run the Install Script. The -d flag automatically answers the default to all questions. To customize it, just omit the -d. 
    sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d
  10. Reboot 
    sudo reboot