With a helpful hint from oakgrove on Ubuntu Forums, I cracked the problem today.
Problem: VMWare Player's guest OS (Win XP, in my case) does not hold the mouse and keyboard control under kernel 2.6.31 -- Linux keeps grabbing it back away from the guest OS. This makes the guest OS very, very clunky to use -- unacceptable for any productive purpose.
Oakgrove's hint: "Mine has the keyboard/mouse problem, but it works when I set it in Unity mode."
So, I attempted to set mine in Unity mode, and got this error: "Your version of VMWare Tools does not support Unity mode." My guest VM is a few years old now -- I think it started life as VMWare Player ver. 1.6 or thereabouts, with the VMWare Tools of the same vintage.
Google led me here: http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Ins...re_Player.html
The VMWare Workstation version referenced in the instruction is not current. Today's workstation download is (for 64-bit): VMware-Workstation-6.5.3-185404.x86_64.bundle
I followed the instruction, with new newest downloaded workstation bundle, extracted the Windows.iso file, burned it to CD with K3b, and then went to install it on the guest OS, clunking along with a Ctrl-G every 10 seconds and keyboard-only control. I learned that the new VMWare tools will not install over the old tools -- the old tools must first be removed, via "Add/Remove Programs". Boo-hoo -- another painful exercise in keyboard-only control of Windows, then restarted, fiddled it into finding the CD again, and ran the VMware tools installer. Following another restart, I set VMware Player to Unity mode, and YES, INDEEDY -- it does work well that way. I'll have to get over not seeing the Win XP desktop -- that should take about 15 seconds.
I tested my genealogy database and website builder, and it all seems to play very nicely on my Kubuntu 9.10 desktop, in unity mode (in unity mode, you pick your guest OS apps off the little Unity menu icon that parks itself in the upper left corner of your screen). Now I think there are no remaining issues with full use of Kubuntu 9.10 for all my customary purposes. 8)
Problem: VMWare Player's guest OS (Win XP, in my case) does not hold the mouse and keyboard control under kernel 2.6.31 -- Linux keeps grabbing it back away from the guest OS. This makes the guest OS very, very clunky to use -- unacceptable for any productive purpose.
Oakgrove's hint: "Mine has the keyboard/mouse problem, but it works when I set it in Unity mode."
So, I attempted to set mine in Unity mode, and got this error: "Your version of VMWare Tools does not support Unity mode." My guest VM is a few years old now -- I think it started life as VMWare Player ver. 1.6 or thereabouts, with the VMWare Tools of the same vintage.
Google led me here: http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Ins...re_Player.html
The VMWare Workstation version referenced in the instruction is not current. Today's workstation download is (for 64-bit): VMware-Workstation-6.5.3-185404.x86_64.bundle
I followed the instruction, with new newest downloaded workstation bundle, extracted the Windows.iso file, burned it to CD with K3b, and then went to install it on the guest OS, clunking along with a Ctrl-G every 10 seconds and keyboard-only control. I learned that the new VMWare tools will not install over the old tools -- the old tools must first be removed, via "Add/Remove Programs". Boo-hoo -- another painful exercise in keyboard-only control of Windows, then restarted, fiddled it into finding the CD again, and ran the VMware tools installer. Following another restart, I set VMware Player to Unity mode, and YES, INDEEDY -- it does work well that way. I'll have to get over not seeing the Win XP desktop -- that should take about 15 seconds.
I tested my genealogy database and website builder, and it all seems to play very nicely on my Kubuntu 9.10 desktop, in unity mode (in unity mode, you pick your guest OS apps off the little Unity menu icon that parks itself in the upper left corner of your screen). Now I think there are no remaining issues with full use of Kubuntu 9.10 for all my customary purposes. 8)
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