Install vmware-tools on Ubuntu 8.1 desktop

Installing vmware tools on Ubuntu 8.10 seems not a piece of cake these days. If you install the vmware-tools that come with vmware workstation 6.0.5, you may end up with a incorrectly configured Ubuntu system that hangs during boot. By searching the internet and customerizing to my own system, here are the steps that finally made it work:

# install vmware-tools on Ubuntu 8.1 desktop
# 
# Mount image:
# Select "VM-> install vmware-tools" from vmware server console or:
# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom0

# Don't use the default one by VMware:
# cp /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools-6.0.5-109488.tar.gz /home/tmp
# tar xvf VMwareTools-6.0.5-109488.tar.gz

# Get the latest open-vm-tools
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/open-vm-tools/open-vm-tools-2008.10.10-123053.tar.gz?modtime=1223858287&big_mirror=0

tar xvf open-vm-tools-2008.10.10-123053.tar.gz

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade # if there’s a new kernel available
shutdown -r now # if you’ve updated the kernel

apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install libproc-dev libdumbnet-dev libicu-dev
apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
# Can bypass this:
# apt-get install libxinerama-dev libxrender-dev libxrandr-dev
apt-get install libxtst-dev libxss-dev
# Try to get this lib but the script always complains it's old:
# apt-get install liburiparser-dev
apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-dev # for open-vm-tools-2009.07.22-179896

cd open-vm-tools-2008.10.10-123053
./configure --disable-unity
make
cd modules/linux
for i in *; do mv ${i} ${i}-only; tar -cf ${i}.tar ${i}-only; done
cd ../../../
mv -f open-vm-tools-*/modules/linux/*.tar vmware-tools-distrib/lib/modules/source/
cd vmware-tools-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl

If you disabled Shared Folders in your VM settings, you’ll see a message “Mounting HGFS shares: failed”. Just enable shared folders and reboot.
(Update on 3/8/2009: Not successful running VMwareTools-6.0.5-109488's vmware-install.pl with open-vm-tools-2009.07.22-179896: compilation failed as missing header files in that release)

Reference and thanks to:
1. http://diamondsw.dyndns.org/Home/Et_Cetera/Entries/2008/4/25_Linux_2.6.24_and_VMWare.html
2. http://muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2008/07/13/ubuntu-hardy-setting-up-vmware-tools-from-the-cli/