Originally Posted by
elCheapoDeluxe
Do you know how to make this work with VMware on Linux? Every time I sized the window to some size other than what it was when the VM booted up, I would end up having to use scroll bars all over the place and it was just darn annoying (because I frequently switch back and forth between a "windowed" mode and a "full screen" mode). Click menu, use scroll bar, find window, use application, use scroll bar, find menu again, use scroll bar, find bottom of screen, use something down there, use scroll bar, resize windows to fit within the host window.... Like many things in Linux, I'm sure it's possible if anyone could just find a setting in there. But I am not a Linux guy and don't pretend to be, though, so perhaps you could point me in the right direction for where to find that.
Linux is not really one OS in that sense, because of the choice of desktop environments... and the proliferation of different versions of the standard stuff across distributions.
With a modern version of X.org and a modern (Gnome 3, KDE 4, etc) desktop + the VMWare video drivers (should be integrated into most non-Debian-based* and desktop-oriented distros), it should "just work."
(* the Debian "open source at all costs" philosophy, which is sadly baked into Ubuntu, means
I think they may not be in either Debian or Ubuntu, unless VMWare has open-sourced their video drives... which they may have.)
I haven't used VMWare in a couple of years, so beyond that vagueness, I can't be as much help as I'd like. I can confirm that with
VirtualBox and the three liveCDs I happen to have ISOs of sitting on my hard drive:
- OpenSUSE 12.2 ( openSUSE-12.2-KDE-LiveCD-i686.iso ) just works with VM screen resizing out of the box
- archlinux-2013.02.01-dual.iso doesn't have a GUI on the LiveCD (I'm guessing that was intended to do an install. I'm not sure when I was messing with it!)
- systemrescuecd-x86-3.4.2.iso does not work with VM screen resizing out of the box -- I get scroll bars if I resize manually (although VirtualBox resizes the window properly when I change the resolution from within the VM)... not sure if this is a driver issue, or an Xfce issue, since it uses that very basic desktop environment.
With a more conservative, less desktop-friendly distribution like Arch or Gentoo or a more conservative one like RHEL/CentOS or an open-source only one like Ubunto/Debian, assuming a modern version of X and a modern desktop(*) it should just be a matter of running the VMWare tools installer off the CD image (or in the case of Ubuntu, there's probably an installable copy in the non-open-source repository, which it may offer you automatically after the first boot -- ISTR that's what it did for the closed-source Nvidia drivers for me when I was messing with it.)
(* again, Gnome 3 or KDE 4... I generally recommend KDE to Windows people, as it feels a lot like Windows to me whereas Gnome 3 is weirder; maybe more OS X like but not like the old Macs I knew or Gnome 2 which was very Mac-like)