So like I said in my previous post that actually got quite a few people angry at me (oh, I’m now apparently a “Linux-wannabe” despite the fact that I openly stated how much I hated Linux, but whatever), I installed Ubuntu 8.04 Beta 1 in a virtual machine the other day. Today I opened it up for a quick play, and when I chose to install VMware Tools, I was greeted with two files and absolutely no direction on what to do. I tried opening the .RPM ending first, which caused Linux to throw a hissy fit at me and complain about how it was all corrupt and was the root of all evil or something. Then I opened the second file, extracted it’s contents, and was greeted by an obviously-not-confusing-to-linux-users file structure of nothing that made any sense. At least here was a readme file…

To install/upgrade VMware Tools for Linux, run the program “vmware-install.pl” from a command prompt, either in text mode or from a terminal inside an X session. You must have super user privileges (i.e. be logged as root) to run it. ./vmware-install.pl (…) In order to run correctly, VMware Tools must first be configured. To configure VMware Tools, run the program “vmware-config-tools.pl” (this is automatically done for you at the end of the installation/upgrade process if you answer “yes” to the last question). You must have super user privileges (i.e. be logged as root) to run it. vmware-config-tools.pl This will teach VMware Tools how to run on your current Linux kernel. If you reboot your machine with a new kernel that VMware Tools doesn’t know yet (because, let’s say, you have upgraded your Linux system), you will have to run this configuration program again. Then, VMware Tools will know this new kernel once and for all.

Yeah, well, I kind of like pressing next until my hand falls off and I suspect most others do too. Oh, and…

In which directory do you want to install the binary files? [/usr/bin] /usr/bin What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)? [/etc]

Yeah, OK, what? How in the world am I supposed to know where the init directories are? Sorry, but this seems outrageous and is only proving my point. Oh - as an interesting side note, Ubuntu (although it could see them) could not modify files on my mother’s computer over the network, though I suspect this has more to do with it being an incomplete beta version.