VMware View PCoIP on Ubuntu How to
Before I start I should mention that what I am doing here is not supported by VMware, nor anyone else. Further if you follow it the normal rules for any of my posts go, you are on your own. If you mess up your computer or get sued or anything its nor me nor anyone problem, its your problem so please proceed with caution at your own risk.
If you follow VMware View news, then you will know that VMware View has a PCoIP client for both Windows & iPads. In addition there is different VMware View Clients that run on Linux/Mac/Android by VMware and third parties, but all of these do not support PCoIP and run only RDP. Trying both RDP and PCoIP I can tell you that PCoIP is much better of a protocol specially over WAN. Therefor if you are running any OS that PCoIP VMware View Client has not been released for, you might be looking up and down to find out away around it. I run Ubuntu myself and has finally succeeded in getting VMware View Client that support PCoIP to run on it natively, and decided to share this will all other Ubuntu fans that want to use PCoIP. I believe the same steps shall give a head up for other Linux/Mac users. Below Video should give you a larger hope seeing it running before you try it your self.
It took me over a month to figure out how to do this on Ubuntu 11.04 (Ubuntu Natty Narwhal) 64-bit, though I have got it to work on Ubuntu 32-bit much earlier. Below I will document how to do it on both Ubuntu 32-bit & Ubuntu 64-bit. Further, I have extracted and fixed both packages for easy installation. For those of you are in rush to get this up and running and don’t care how I got these packages or how its made (Some time I am on this side when I want an app up and running asap) then follow the shortcut procedure. If you are the type who like to discover the full story & how to come up with the same on your own then follow the Full Procedure section. Further, if you are using another OS beside Ubuntu I believe the Full Procedure section might be a good start for you to get things working for your specific OS.
VMware View PCoIP on Ubuntu How to (Short Cut Version)
1- Uninstall the VMware Open View Client if was installed before using the following command:
apt-get remove rdesktop tsclient
2- Download the “VMware View PCoIP Client for Ubuntu.zip” Package including both the 32-bit & 64-bit installers (Sorry was lazy to upload two separate packages beside its only about 12MB in total) from one of the below mirrors:
Mirror-1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PBY86CI9
Mirror-2: http://www.mediafire.com/?zrvxj5blhr0ouvv
Mirror-3: https://rapidshare.com/files/883074570/VMware_View_PCoIP_Client_for_Ubuntu.zip
3- Right click & Extract the “VMware_View_PCoIP_Client_for_Ubuntu.zip” compressed files.
4- Browse through the folder you extracted the package to and depending on the architecture of your machine browse to the 32bit or 64bit folder
5- Double Click on the “64_hptc-rdesktop_1.6.0-1.27_i386.deb” package if running 64-bit Ubuntu else Double Click on “hptc-rdesktop_1.6.0-1.27_i386.deb”, You will get a warning and an option to “Ignore and Install” as showing in the screen shot below. You already guessed it hit the Ignore and Install as this package was not perfectly built, but hey it does work :). Just wait till the installation of this package complete.
6- Double Click on the “64_vmware-view-client_4.0.1-235010_i386.deb” package if running 64-bit Ubuntu else Double Click on “vmware-view-client_4.0.1-235010_i386.deb”, You will get a warning and an option to “Ignore and Install” as showing in the screen shot below. You are almost there – hit the Ignore and Install button. Just wait till the installation of this package complete.
7- Your installation is complete and you are ready to run your View Client with PCoIP support, just type vmware-view on the shell and the PCoIP VMware View Client will start as showing in the below screenshot:
8- Just proceed with the connection settings just as you would do on a normal View Client.
For those of you who took the easy way congrats, now you have a fully operational VMware View Client that work impressively with PCoIP running natively on your Ubuntu Box. Though USB Redirection still does not work for you and the below error is expected:
“/usr/bin/vmware-view-usb was not found; disabling USB redirection.”
If you don’t require USB Redirection you can stop here, though if you want to fix USB Redirection then just close the VMware View Client & run the below command:
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/vmware/vmware-view-usb /etc/vmware/usb.link
VMware View PCoIP on Ubuntu How to (Full Version)
For those of you who would like to know how I got to these packages, and just a working installer is not enough info for them then read the steps below:
1- Download the HP version of the VMWare View Client with PCoIP, which is found at: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp46001-46500/sp46024.exe
2- Install the downloaded executable on a Windows Machine or using wine.
3- Copy the following two files to your Ubuntu machine: hptc-rdesktop_1.6.0-1.27_i386.deb & vmware-view-client_4.0.1-235010_i386.deb
4- For 32-bit Ubuntu you can install the copied packages in step 3 and follow the installation instructions in the short cut version
5- You might wonder where is the 64-bit packages, yes that where I suffered the most as the 32-bit version did not work on my 64-bit version of Ubuntu and I had to find a way to convert it to a 64-bit packages. The way I have done that after few weeks of research by trying everything you can think of and installing all the 32-bit libraries on my machine I have finally came across the ‘YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions’, which worked as magic in converting the 32-bit into a 64-bit package nonetheless the warning it gives while installing it works as charm. The way ‘YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions’ work is documented in my following article if you care to find out the details.
6- From here you can follow the VMware View PCoIP on Ubuntu How to (Short Cut Version) to complete the installation.
While searching I have came across another way of doing things for the 32-bit version, and although not require and not sure if it work for Ubuntu I believe it give a good start for those trying to get things to work on Mac or other Linux variations. If you are not using Ubuntu, then the following post might be worth reading: http://blog.offenders.org/?p=75
I hope this help, and you will enjoy a non precedent experience when connecting using PCoIP when compared to the deadly slow RDP :). Please post your success stories and comments in the comments area below.
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June 30th, 2011 at 2:00 am |
Since you took the basics from HP, I truly wonder if this compliant to licensing required for using teradici’s pcoip.
To my knowlegde only certain thinclients offer the pcoip support on linux and there is probably a fee involved for the thinclient vendors to be able to offer it.
I could be wrong though
However still nice work.
June 30th, 2011 at 2:50 am |
Well, sorry for not so good news, but this didn’t work on my Natty 64-bit at all.
First – it didn’t install, complaining that /proc/bus/usb doesn’t exist (indeed it doesn’t).
After I figured out how to trick the debian postinstall script, it still didn’t work.
I was only briefly looking at differences between 32-bit and 64-bit packages but didn’t quite understand what’s the purpose of packing 32-bit binaries and call them a 64-bit package.
June 30th, 2011 at 7:40 am |
Great work! I have a problem however. During installation of the 64bit view client, I get the following error, which fails installation. I am a n00b so any advice is greatly appreciated. 😀
Setting up vmware-view-client (4.0.1-235010) …
umount: /proc/bus/usb: not found
mount: mount point /proc/bus/usb does not exist
dpkg: error processing vmware-view-client (–install):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 32
Errors were encountered while processing:
vmware-view-client
June 30th, 2011 at 7:56 am |
Please remove this and my other post. 3 minutes of googling and 2 reboots and I fixed it. again, bang on good worK!
June 30th, 2011 at 8:31 am |
Sorry for all the messages. I got it to work. Sort of. No USB redirection, and limited to one viewer at a time. I cant even uninstall it… wtf.
June 30th, 2011 at 4:36 pm |
Hi Comedit,
As I mentioned in the first few lines of my post, I have no clue about the copyright and legal issues using this method can impose on anyone.
Though I believe no one will bother too much for a personal usage, or just to prove its possible and that what meant to be the output of my post.
If you are thinking to use it in the enterprise or commercial usage, then you will have to do your own research of what legal issues you can hit.
Regards,
Admin
June 30th, 2011 at 4:43 pm |
Hi Ivars,
I am currently running Ubuntu Natty Narwhal 64-bit my self, and it definitively work perfectly on it using the same instruction. The error for the USB redirection was still there when I first posted it, but that only when executing the vmware-view command not when installing the packages, and PCoIP was still working but without USB redirection. I have just figured out and added the instructions for the USB redirection enablement steps to the the post. As you can see this post is more of work in progress, but I am definite it work on Ubuntu Natty 64-bit as you could see in the video in the post as that was Ubuntu Natty 64-bit where I recorded the video.
In regards of the 64-bit packaging for a 32-bit application, the installation of the 32 package using the –force-architecture never succeeded to me where after converting it to 64-bit things went quite smoothly with dependencies and it just install perfectly :).
As I mentioned although it works, this post is a work in progress and I would love to get as many feedback and improvements and tuning by readers. So please share more with me to improve it.
June 30th, 2011 at 4:48 pm |
Hi Alex,
I have added the steps for USB redirection, though as I mentioned this is by no mean a perfect package but a good work around & in progress. By the way the uninstall work on my side using the software center.
I have been using it for few days now without any problem. Would you be kind enough to share how did you go about the USB mount error during installation & was it on 32-bit or 64-bit? As I don’t see these errors when installing it on my system, but other readers seems to face them and if you can share how you resolved it on your machine many others can benefit and contribute back.
Regards,
Admin
July 24th, 2011 at 1:31 pm |
Hi Alex,
I followed the quick install steps (thank BTW) but when I run vmware-view I get an error message back:
bash: /usr/bin/vmware-view: No such file or directory
Any ideas?
July 27th, 2011 at 2:58 pm |
I could get the USB working and I got the following error on 64bit:
Setting up vmware-view-client (4.0.1-235010) …
umount: /proc/bus/usb: not found
mount: mount point /proc/bus/usb does not exist
dpkg: error processing vmware-view-client (–configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 32
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
Errors were encountered while processing:
vmware-view-client
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:
Setting up vmware-view-client (4.0.1-235010) …
umount: /proc/bus/usb: not found
mount: mount point /proc/bus/usb does not exist
dpkg: error processing vmware-view-client (–configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 32
Errors were encountered while processing:
vmware-view-client
July 28th, 2011 at 12:21 pm |
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/vmware/vmware-view-usb /etc/vmware/usb.link
doesn’t work for me on Ubuntu 11.04 x86
but :
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/vmware/vmware-view-usb /etc/vmware/usb.link
work great
The auto-mount feature for USB harddisk need to be disable on Ubuntu.
I tested 5 USB harddisk and I lost the drive in Windows
But, my USB scanner (ScanSnap S1500) work really faster with Linux USB redirection than Windows.
BTW, if you go to the HP website, search support for the ThinClient t5565
You will have the VMware View Client 4.6
Thanks you for your tuto !
August 2nd, 2011 at 11:55 am |
I am on ubuntu 10.10 and was seeing it try to connect to they system and then drop the connection.
In the log I saw this:
Aug 02 11:44:48.250: vmware-view| Gtk: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
Aug 02 11:44:48.250: vmware-view| Gtk: Loading IM context type ‘ibus’ failed
Aug 02 11:44:48.252: vmware-view| Gtk: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
Aug 02 11:44:48.252: vmware-view| Gtk: Loading IM context type ‘ibus’ failed
Solution was:
aptitude reinstall ia32-libs
and it seemed to be happy. Hope this helps someone.
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:01 am |
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August 3rd, 2011 at 1:02 am |
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August 8th, 2011 at 1:32 pm |
I’m using Ubuntu natty 64bit and it works without USB redirection, has someone really managed to get USB redirection working on Ubuntu natty 64bit?
August 11th, 2011 at 4:38 pm |
@Alex:
I’m also getting the following error message, when trying to install with sudo dpkg -i vmware…
umount: /proc/bus/usb: not found
mount: mount point /proc/bus/usb does not exist
What can I do?
Since Alex seemed to solve this, can ypu provide some additional information?
– Phil
October 23rd, 2011 at 6:33 pm |
Thanks for this article.
I noticed that HP has updated to the 4.6 Client found here http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=vc-92976-1&lang=en&cc=us&idx=2&mode=4&
Seems to be working fine!
January 17th, 2012 at 2:43 pm |
I can’t seem to get past the USB issue. I’m using Ubuntu 10.04 and can not upgrade right now (long story). Initially I got the “umount: /proc/bus/usb: not found” message as described. I tried the sym-link fix but now I get this message:
mount: unknown filesystem type ‘usbfs’
No obvious hints from Google search.
February 2nd, 2012 at 12:28 pm |
To get around the usb and dpkg errors (which will pop up every time you install anything using apt-get, synaptic, dpkg etc), you simply need to edit the post installation script that HP provided with the vmware-view-client package. It would seem there’s some nasty HP thin client specific bits in there which trip up other Linux distros. This worked for me in Ubuntu 10.x and 11.x as well as Linux Mint 12 (which is based on Ubuntu 11.x):
Install the two packages as above, but then go to /var/lib/dpkg/info and then edit (vi/gedit/whatever) the file ‘vmware-view-client.postinst’. Comment out (put a # at the start of the line) everything in the ‘Give VIEW_USB access to…’ section, and also the ‘One time hack to…’ section.
Now you will have a working View client, but without the errors every time you install anything else!
Rich.
February 27th, 2012 at 2:26 pm |
in Ubuntu 12.04, you’ll need a symlink for libQtCore.so.4 in /usr/lib:
apt-get install libqtcore4; cd /usr/lib/; ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCore.so.4.8.0 libQtCore.so.4
March 8th, 2012 at 10:31 am |
Hi Rich,
Thanks for the tip.
Regards,
Erick
March 28th, 2012 at 11:56 pm |
Great!
Thanks for ur post. PCoIP and USB-redirect work well on my own Linux.
But I have a question that: how can I choose which USB device should be redirected and which one not?
June 13th, 2012 at 11:32 am |
he seguido todo los pasos pero no se redirecciona los usb alguien me puede ayudar?
jun 13 11:25:49.939: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153): vmware-view-usb[2153]: Jun 13 11:25:49.356: vmware-view-usb| Remote USB status reported, state: available
jun 13 11:25:49.940: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153): vmware-view-usb[2153]: Jun 13 11:25:49.827: vmware-view-usb| Device attributes: Name: Seiko Epson USB Printer, Id: vid1208,pid5, Family: printer, Path: bus4,port3
jun 13 11:25:49.940: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153): vmware-view-usb[2153]: Jun 13 11:25:49.894: vmware-view-usb| ‘Seiko Epson USB Printer’ is allowed.
jun 13 11:25:49.941: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153): vmware-view-usb[2153]: Jun 13 11:25:49.614: vmware-view-usb| Error initializing Hal Context
jun 13 11:25:49.942: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153): vmware-view-usb[2153]: Jun 13 11:25:49.886: vmware-view-usb| Seiko Epson USB Printer is not being redirected as we may not have priviledge or it may be a boot device
jun 13 11:36:48.524: vmware-view| vmware-remotemks-container(2154) exited normally.
jun 13 11:36:48.524: vmware-view| Cancelling 0 broker XML requests.
jun 13 11:36:48.527: vmware-view| vmware-view-usb(2153) exited normally.
jun 13 11:36:48.527: vmware-view| Cancelling 0 broker XML requests.
October 26th, 2012 at 7:34 am |
hello, I have same problems as Robinson say. Someone have some ideas on how to solve? Thank you very much for your article.
November 23rd, 2012 at 10:37 pm |
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December 20th, 2012 at 8:16 am |
HHHmmmm. It was working on 12.04 LTS and just stopped. Tried a rebuild and follow all the steps and no nothing. Would it stop for no reason? I made an edit to /etc/fstab because after reboot I started getting Error occurred while mounting /proc/bus/usb. Wonder if this has something to do with it. REM’d out line none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=125,devmode=664 0 0
December 21st, 2012 at 9:41 am |
Figured it out. If you are not root you need to sudo vmware-view