Minimal Debian Install with X in Vmware

World wide mirror sites (link)
After installing the base system, do the following.

For main Debian repository

hostname:/# nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list

#more entries from here of course from /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

Hongkong is best for my case too:

#more entries from here of course from /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ftp.hk.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.hk.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

Continue with installing the rest of the software:

hostname:/# apt-get update
hostname:/# apt-get install less

Depending on your Debian version, do install xorg related packages.

	Debian Sarge 3.1	Debian Etch
	apt-get install x-window-system-core	apt-get install xorg

Note: Based from this url , the above package is for compatibility only from Debian 3.x. Etch should instead use xorg package.

hostname:/# apt-get install gnome-core
hostname:/# apt-get install gdm msttcorefonts gdm-themes
hostname:/# reboot

After reboot, you should now be in graphical mode. Next step is to prepare the system to install Vmware tools.

hostname:/# apt-get install gcc
hostname:/# apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

From the host machine, using VMware Server Console, do VM->Install VMware Tools.... Back in guest Debian, do the following as a root user.

hostname:/# mkdir /mnt/cdrom
hostname:/# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
hostname:/# mkdir ~/soft
hostname:/# cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.tar.gz ~/soft
hostname:/# cd ~/soft
hostname:/# tar -xvzf VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.tar.gz
hostname:/# cd vmware-tools-distrib
hostname:/# ./vmware-install.pl

Just supply the default values when running vmware-install.pl. Note that you have to select the next smaller screen resolution with reference to your host machine else it will be a bit difficult to navigate in the guest OS. For some reason the driver from VMware mouse driver is not copied to the right location and xorg.conf was not adjusted too so we have to do this manually.

hostname:/# cd /usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/XOrg/7.0
hostname:/# cp vmmouse_drv.so /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers
hostname:/# nano -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Your xorg.conf should have something like this:

#more entries before this line
Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver  "vmmouse"
 Option  "CorePointer"
 Option  "Device"  "/dev/input/mice"
 Option  "Protocol"  "ps/2"
 Option  "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
 Option  "ZAxisMapping"  "4 5"
EndSection

Then do a reboot,

:/# reboot

Install additional applications, like:

:/# apt-get install synaptic
:/# apt-get install firefox
:/# apt-get install gnome-themes
:/# apt-get install gnome-art

~ts~