Well, this is a step in the right direction. I found a launchpad discussion on the virtual mouse detection in VMWare Workstation with an Ubuntu Intrepid guest. A fix has been proposed and uploaded to the intrepid-proposed repository. I have tested this and it seems to work fine in my Intrepid guest.
UPDATED: See at the bottom.
The link above shows how you can enable the intrepid-proposed in one of two ways. You can add the following line into /etc/apt/sources.lst:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-proposed restricted main multiverse universe
Or, you can go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources, click on the Updates tab, then select the box next to Pre-released updates (intrepid-proposed):
Click the Close button, and the package manager will then offer to update the package list:
You will find a host of things updated, but you only want one package. So in the proposed update list, unselect all the proposed updates except xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse, then click to apply the update.
After updating this driver, you can go back into System -> Administration -> Software Sources as above and uncheck the box next to Pre-released updates. That will get rid of the nagging reminders that pre-release updates are available. Restart your Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid guest virtual machine and your mouse will now move seamlessly between your host and guest.
This does not fix the inability to cut-and-paste or drag-and-drop between the host and guest, but it does make your Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex virtual machine much more convenient to use.
FWIW, a VMWare employee replied in this thread with what we already knew – that Intrepid isn’t officially supported by VMWare Workstation 6.5.0. He also noted that the accelerated 3D video only works in WinXP. Bummer.
UPDATE: We received an unofficial VMWare response that isn’t going to make those wanting to test Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. We need to inundate the WMWare feature request forum with requests for a fix to VMWare Tools for Intrepid.
Also, I found another site for the Open Source VMWare Tools for 8.10 Intrepid. You can also get the currently released version from the Ubuntu respositories. I tried the current release (Oct 8 version), but they made no difference. Only the vmmouse fix works as stated above in the main post, and that came from the Ubuntu team. Looks like those of us wanting to run Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid in VMWare Workstation 6.5.0 and Server 2.0 are out of luck on cut-and-paste and drag-and-drop between host and guest for now. The only solution is likely to come from the open source community.
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[...] seems to have fixed the USB and other issues. Although Intrepid initially had issues with the virtual mouse driver and udev – the latter opening and closing the CD tray before any human can retrieve the media from [...]
By: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid reconsidered « Reformed Musings on December 13, 2008
at 2:53 pm