[X2Go-Dev] Problem with X2Go and VMWare Tools

Daniel Lindgren bd.dali at gmail.com
Sat Feb 18 21:04:30 CET 2012


> Exactly which flavor of Linux are you running? Plain Debian, Ubuntu
> ("bastardized" with an additional Debian repository for open-vm-tools), or
> something completely different? And which version?

Debian Squeeze 6.0.4, fresh install today. Open-vm-tools is in contrib.

> I remember seeing some VMtools related issues in the release notes for
> VMware Workstation, so - have you checked ESXi's release notes?
> Workstation release notes can be found here:
> https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ws_pubs.html - I'd wager a guess that
> ESXi's release notes are available somewhere in the vicinity of that page.

Haven't seen anything related to vmtoolsd. Googling the problem leads
nowhere, probably because it's related to X2Go which is not commonly
used, at least not together with VMWare.

> <soapbox>
> The hassle with having to install vmware tools in every guest to perform a
> soft power-off, and keeping the tools up-to-date and matching the currently
> installed kernel is one of the many reasons why I'm moving my customers away
> from VMware to KVM+libvirt.  Of course, they were using VMware Server, not
> ESXi, but honestly, my personal opinion after years of using VMware products
> in multiple scenarios is, if you aren't forced to use VMware (upper
> management decisions, already existing virtual infrastructure based on
> VMware components,...), don't.  Had KVM been available and in a usable state
> 6 years ago, I would never have touched VMware Server.  VMware Workstation
> is kind of neat for debugging/demoing stuff, though, I have to admit that.
>
> Shutting down a guest in KVM/libvirt works by sending an ACPI "power-button
> pressed" event to the guest, no special drivers/modules required, just the
> stock ACPI support present in every modern operating system, be it Linux,
> *BSD or Windows.
> </soapbox>

At the end of the day, VMWare is the biggest player in the virtual
enterprise. At work we have ~400 virtual machines running 24/7 and
very, very few problems. VMWare Server is not an enterprise product,
ESXi is and I would highly recommend anyone that can use the free
version of ESXi instead of VMWare Server to switch ASAP.

If you buy VMWare vCenter you get live migration too, once you've used
it you'll never want to go back ...

Cheers,
Daniel



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