vm-tools: copy/paste not working or scaling problems

[inetov]

I newbie with Linux. Just installed Mint in a virtual machine (VMware) and get a problem with vm-tools:

When switching between fullscreen and windowed, the screen scale resets to 200% (I need 150% for my monitor). Also, if I change screen scale manually the mouse gets locked in the virtual machine window and I have to press CTRL+ALT to release the cursor. Other features work.

By default, open-vm-tools is installed on the system.
I tried removing open-vm-tools (and open-vm-tools-desktop) with the command:
sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove open-vm-tools-desktop
then installed "VMware Tools":

Player > Manage > Install VMware Tools ...
extract archive
run sudo ./vmware-install.pl

After reboot, no scaling issues when switching window modes - this works great. The mouse moves freely in the VM and back. But copy/paste stops working!
I recorded a video showing these problems.
Google says that in this case you need to install open-vm-tools-desktop. It helps, but the scaling problem comes back.
Both functions are important for me))

I emphasize that the problem is not in the absence of the necessary functionality, but in the fact that some features work in the "open-vm-tools", and other features work in "VMware Tools".

Host OS: Windows 10 Pro
VMware® Workstation 17 Player (17.0.1)
Guest OS: Mint 21.1 (Kernel: Linux 5.15.0-56-generic)

inxi -Fxxxrz:

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-56-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0
    Desktop: Cinnamon 5.6.7 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: muffin vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0
    Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Vmware System: VMware product: VMware Virtual Platform v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: No Enclosure type: 1
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Intel model: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
    serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Phoenix v: 6.00 date: 11/12/2020
CPU:
  Info: 4x 1-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
    type: SMP smt: <unsupported> arch: Zen 3 rev: 0 cache:
    L1: 4x 64 KiB (256 KiB) L2: 4x 512 KiB (2 MiB) L3: 4x 16 MiB (64 MiB)
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3194 min/max: N/A cores: 1: 3194 2: 3194 3: 3194
    4: 3194 bogomips: 25551
  Flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: VMware SVGA II Adapter driver: vmwgfx v: 2.19.0.0 ports:
    active: Virtual-1 empty: Virtual-2, Virtual-3, Virtual-4, Virtual-5,
    Virtual-6, Virtual-7, Virtual-8
    bus-ID: 00:0f.0 chip-ID: 15ad:0405 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: vmware
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: vmwgfx display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2467x1515 s-dpi: 192 s-size: 326x200mm (12.8x7.9")
    s-diag: 382mm (15.1")
  Monitor-1: Virtual1 mapped: Virtual-1 res: 2467x1515 hz: 60 size: N/A
    modes: max: 2467x1515 min: 640x480
  OpenGL: renderer: SVGA3D; build: RELEASE; LLVM; v: 4.1 Mesa 22.2.5
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Ensoniq ES1371/ES1373 / Creative Labs CT2518 driver: snd_ens1371
    v: kernel bus-ID: 02:02.0 chip-ID: 1274:1371 class-ID: 0401
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-56-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI vendor: VMware Virtual Machine
    type: network bridge driver: N/A port: N/A bus-ID: 00:07.3
    chip-ID: 8086:7113 class-ID: 0680
  Device-2: VMware VMXNET3 Ethernet driver: vmxnet3 v: 1.6.0.0-k pcie:
    speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 32 port: 4000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 15ad:07b0
    class-ID: 0200
  IF: ens160 state: up speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: VMware Virtual Bluetooth Adapter type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 2-2.1:6 chip-ID: 0e0f:0008 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down
    bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes
    address: <filter>
RAID:
  Device-1: bpool type: zfs status: ONLINE level: linear raw: size: 960 MiB
    free: 693 MiB allocated: 267 MiB zfs-fs: size: 831.8 MiB free: 564.7 MiB
  Components: Online: N/A
  Device-2: rpool type: zfs status: ONLINE level: linear raw:
    size: 17.5 GiB free: 9.42 GiB allocated: 8.08 GiB zfs-fs: size: 16.95 GiB
    free: 8.87 GiB
  Components: Online: N/A
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: raw: 20 GiB usable: 37.77 GiB used: 8.35 GiB (22.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: VMware model: Virtual S size: 20 GiB type: N/A
    serial: N/A rev: 1.0 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 15.49 GiB used: 6.62 GiB (42.7%) fs: zfs
    logical: rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_w0wpyk
  ID-2: /boot size: 831 MiB used: 266.4 MiB (32.1%) fs: zfs
    logical: bpool/BOOT/ubuntu_w0wpyk
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 512 MiB used: 16.7 MiB (3.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-4: /var/log size: 8.89 GiB used: 21.1 MiB (0.2%) fs: zfs
    logical: rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_w0wpyk/var/log
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 923 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    dev: /dev/sda3
Sensors:
  Message: No sensor data found. Is lm-sensors configured?
Repos:
  Packages: 2185 apt: 2179 flatpak: 6
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64] https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com vera main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 396 Uptime: 1h 5m wakeups: 2421 Memory: 7.73 GiB
  used: 3.26 GiB (42.1%) Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers:
  gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11/12 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: gnome-terminal
  inxi: 3.3.13

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

I use Windows 10 Pro guest in VMware Workstation Player 17.0.1 with VMware tools installed in Windows 10 and all is fine: window resizing, copy / paste (from a document to another or from a file manager to another). So, what you get with VMware tools is not normal.

Just a try: launch VMware Player Workstation, select your virtual machine, on the right click on "Edit virtual machine settings", than Options / VMware tools, select "Synchronize guest time with host" and "Update automatically"; click on save; close the "Virtual machine settings" window; launch your virtual machine (Linux Mint).

NB: with Windows 10 Pro, you don't need VMware Workstation Player, you can have Linux distros, Ubuntu or others, running in WSL. It could be a workaround if you don't succeed to have VMware tools working correctly.

Regards,

MN

[inetov]

I am also using windows 10 guest and there is no problem with VMware tools.
based on my tests described in the first message - we can conclude that the problem is in the linux version of vmtools, and not in the windows version of vmtools.

I'm already using WSL, but it has its own bugs, besides I need the ability to quickly release resources and save state - a virtual machine is suitable for this very well.

[inetov]

I added a video to the first post (direct link)

[inetov]

up! I still haven't found a solution

(no replies (other than my own) in the last 48 hours)

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

Why not to test open-vm tools and VMware tools, installed and running both?

Regards,

MN

[inetov]

Why not to test open-vm tools and VMware tools, installed and running both?

I do not know how to do it. I think that when one tool is installed - it replaces the existing one.

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

1) VMware workstation Player for Windows documentation is found here:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Works ... -guide.pdf

Note that VMware tools for Linux is frozen to an old version, and so VMware recommends installing open-vm tools:

Manually Installing VMware Tools on a Linux Virtual Machine
It is recommended that you use Open VM Tools in Linux virtual machines.
For more information about Linux distributions supported by Open VM Tools, see https://
github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/blob/master/README.md and the VMware Compatibility
Guide at https://www.vmware.com/resources/compat ... search.php.

2) If you choose open-vm tools, you need to install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop (mandatory in order to have the resizing capability).

If you want to use the open-vm tools version available from within Linux Mint 21, here is the command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop

It will install open-vm-tools-desktop and its dependencies, open-vm-tools, libxmlsec1-openssl, zerofree.
Restart, then

Code: Select all

vmware-toolbox-cmd --version

will give you the installed version of open-vm tools.

The latest available version is 12.2.0, available from https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools ... ble-12.2.0, but you need to compile it; you download the "tar.gz" in your Linux virtual machine, decompress it and follow the installation procedure, see https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools ... n-vm-tools.

3) You can use an Open Source SVGA3D driver from Mesa, see https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/svga3d. ... are-svga3d

Regards,

MN

[inetov]

thank you for reply, MikeNovember!

1-2) as I wrote in the first post: I tried to install open-vm-tools-desktop.
now I went through your links and installed the latest version:

Code: Select all

vmware-toolbox-cmd --version
12.2.0.41219 (build-21223074)

3) I downloaded, compiled and installed this driver...

after 3 hours of builds and dependency installations, I didn't get any effect.
everything works (as before), but the scale is reset when the window is resized:
If the scale is 100%, then everything is fine. if you put 125 or 150 - when you resize the window, the scale will become 200% and the mouse will be locked in the window.

[trinidad]

What's wrong with a native hyper-v installation. I run Linux Lite 6 in hyper-v on Windows 10/11 with no issues whatsoever. I expect either version of Mint would work just as well. Both systems have an SSH server installed and file sharing in both directions and other networking operations are very easy. WSL is kinda weak by comparison and not as useful. Working cross platform with natively virtualized systems has improved dramatically with the addition of the MS version of SSH server, so much so that I wonder why MS is even bothering with WSL. Now you can actually securely RDP or VNC a Linux system running in Windows hyper-v to another virtualized system running on a Linux or Windows host.

TC

[Tharsax_]

Just a try: launch VMware Player Workstation, select your virtual machine, on the right click on "Edit virtual machine settings", than Options / VMware tools, select "Synchronize guest time with host" and "Update automatically"; click on save; close the "Virtual machine settings" window; launch your virtual machine (Linux Mint).

I had the same problem and this fixed it for me. Thank you very much!