Where to get Linux tools?

S

Synchro

Junior Member
I've got the downloaded version of Parallels 3 (hence no CD) - Where can I find the Linux tools? They're not on the disk image, can't find them anywhere on this site.
 
There's a Help page on this in the Parallels Help that's installed. Follow that sequence to the letter.

You log into your Linux VM, then go to the Parallels Actions menu and select Install Parallels Tools. This will connect a disk image to your VM's CD interface. You can then use a terminal window inside the VM and log in as root. Mount the CD and change directory to it, then run a specific script inside it to install the tools. I can assure you it worked when I tried it here in a Centos 4.4 VM, but I did have some fun finding the mount and cd command formats to use.
 
While your Linux guest is active, and you are logged in, go to the Parallels "Action" menu and choose "Install Parallels Tools".

Unlike the Windows guest, there are then a few more manual steps you have to do. Open a terminal window, and run:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cd /mnt
sudo sh parallels-tools.run

At this point, restart your X server by doing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Once it restarts, you will find that your mouse pointer flows freely!

I'm so glad they added Linux tools in 3.0. This is probably what's going to keep me from jumping ship to Fusion ... this was the one big weakness the product had for my usage up until now.

Eric

[Edit: I couldn't see AlanH's reply before I posted mine. :) Also I should note, the steps above were what I used for Ubuntu Linux. I guess YMMV depending on your specific Linux distro]
 
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eriqthegeek said:
[Edit: I couldn't see AlanH's reply before I posted mine. :) Also I should note, the steps above were what I used for Ubuntu Linux. I guess YMMV depending on your specific Linux distro]
Click to expand...
NP. We said roughly the same things. The differences were:

- I couldn't use sudo because for some reason my Centos disti didn't set me up in the sudo'ers, so I had to su root befor running the script.

- I and never remember command line formats, so every damned command requires multiple visits to on or more man pages. Now I remember why I am a GUI kinda guy.

Note that the Linux tools still don't support drag and drop between the host and guest OS's.
 
No go

Unfortunately that didn't work. It seemed to mount the image (I could see vmtools-linux.iso attached to the virtual CD drive). The mount command said:

Code: 
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
mount: block device /dev/cdrom is write-protected, mounting read only

which I guess is OK. cd /mnt didn't complain, but trying to run the installer just said "sh: can't open parallels-tools.run".

Oddly, ls /mnt just says "primary volume descriptor for contact information". Rather than logging in as root, I used "sudo su".

umount won't let me unmount the image - it just says it's busy.

I am on Ubuntu 7.04 on a MacBook with Parallels build 4128.
 
I did that, but after it failed to find the installer I tried ls to see what was in there, which is nothing.
 
If you can mount the iso in OSX, go to the mounted disk image, grab the file parallels-tools.run and email it to yourself. Open your email in linux, download the file and run it. Should have the same effect.
 
Synchro said:
I did that, but after it failed to find the installer I tried ls to see what was in there, which is nothing.
Click to expand...
You didn't say so. The fact that ls gives an empty listing indicates that it hasn't mounted.

I just re-ran the process here.

- Launched my Centos VM. Ensured that no DVD was connected (bottom icon had a red badge)

- Selected Actions->Install Parallels Tools. DVD image connected, andParallels Tools appeared on the Centos desktop.

- Double clicked it and saw a window called "cdrecorder" containing the two files:
parallels-tools.run and prl-tools-uninstall.sh

- Opened the terminal. Typed:

su root and entered root password

Typed:

cd /media/cdrecorder

Typed ls and got the same list of files I could see in the window above. So I knew I was in the right place.

Typed:

sh parallels-tools.run

The installer ran. Rebooted and I was done.
 
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Synchro said:
Unfortunately that didn't work. It seemed to mount the image (I could see vmtools-linux.iso attached to the virtual CD drive). The mount command said:

Code: 
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
mount: block device /dev/cdrom is write-protected, mounting read only

which I guess is OK. cd /mnt didn't complain, but trying to run the installer just said "sh: can't open parallels-tools.run".

Oddly, ls /mnt just says "primary volume descriptor for contact information". Rather than logging in as root, I used "sudo su".

umount won't let me unmount the image - it just says it's busy.

I am on Ubuntu 7.04 on a MacBook with Parallels build 4128.
Click to expand...
When you click on install parallels tools, the iso image automatically gets mounted. You don't need to mount it manually. In Fedora, it gets mounted under /media. I don't know about Ubuntu though.
 
I solved this via a different route. I scp'd the image into my Ubuntu VM, and mounted it using these steps, then ran the installer and rebooted the vm. And it works. Well, mouse integration and screen size is fixed, but no copy/paste.

I don't know why the built-in mechanism didn't work when there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the image.
 
Solved

It does indeed auto-mount under /media/Parallels\ Tools, so most of the steps described in the docs and this thread are unnecessary. Thanks for the tip. To summarise, here are revised instructions:

Select Actions -> Install parallels tools...
In a terminal, enter:
cd /media/Parallels\ Tools/
sudo sh parallels-tools.run

Now restart your X server or reboot the VM.
 
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