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June 23, 2005

Vmware tools hosed up the mouse

I have VMware Workstation to allow me to run Linux on my Windows XP laptop. It is really slick (I'm using 4.5.2...5.0 is available).

Either way, after installing "VMWare Tools" on the UNIX system, I couldn't get X Windows to load...it said it couldn't start because of a mouse problem (couldn't find /dev/mouse).

Thanks to this link, I was able to solve it:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=16918&tstart=60

Basically, the setting in /etc/XF86Config should have been /dev/input/mice instead of /dev/mouse. It seems to me the installation may have stopped X from looking at /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which had the right setting.

Why use VMware Tools? From the VMware Workstation Users Manual:

For best performance, it is important to have VMware Tools installed and running in your virtual machine...

A suite of utilities and drivers that enhances the performance and functionality of your guest operating system. Key features of VMware Tools include some or all of the following, depending on your guest operating system: an SVGA driver, a mouse driver, the VMware Tools control panel and support for such features as shared folders, drag and drop in Windows guests, shrinking virtual disks, time synchronization with the host, VMware Tools scripts, and connecting and disconnecting devices while the virtual machine is running.

Posted by alan at June 23, 2005 6:51 PM

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