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Since the vmware virtual machine drivers are pretty standard I don't see any technical reason for a preinstalled image not to be portable.

Although the above situation is obvious, I didn't find any preinstalled vmware image for Ubuntu.

Is there a trusted free vmware image or an OVF image with Ubuntu preinstalled?

Note: OVF image works with most of the players!

Eduard Florinescu
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    I agree that we need official virtual disk images from Canonical or Launchpad, from the official Ubuntu Launchpad project. – nanofarad Jan 21 '13 at 13:28
  • @ObsessiveSSOℲ Indeed it would be very useful. – Eduard Florinescu Jan 21 '13 at 13:29
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    Wait a minute. Please request an OVF (Open Virtualization Format) image, rather than a VMware-only image. We'd better have a universal one, for VirtualBox, VMware, Microsoft solutions, etc. – gertvdijk Jan 21 '13 at 23:24
  • @gertvdijk thanks, updated to include also OVF, but I am mostly interested in vmware player. – Eduard Florinescu Jan 22 '13 at 09:27
  • Why we need pre-made virtual machine images, while we can use iso-disc-image easily with all virtual machine-software for to install ubuntu on virtual-machine's virtual-hard-disk. This quide is for VirtualBox, but works with others same way. So
    • create ubuntu virtual machine - include virtual cd-drive and attach ubuntu iso disc image to it - intall ubuntu from virtual cd-drive to virtual hard disk that's it and you have ubuntu virtual machine. That doesn't take much time. http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox
     –  Feb 28 '13 at 10:50

5 Answers5

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There is an official place where ubuntu distributes it's cloud images (including ovf format):

https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/

Ex, for 14.04 (scroll to page bottom): https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/

ribozz
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    Great resource! Here you can find the official releases: https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/ – chris Apr 12 '15 at 02:34
  • Tried to use an .ova file from here. VirtualBox complains about the .vmdk inside it being corrupt. – Kaz Aug 13 '16 at 00:19
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Seems the same question's already been asked on SuperUser - Where can I find Ubuntu Desktop releases on a vmdk

The following is the accepted answer:

I have not found any official ubuntu website distributing vmdk's.

According to http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/

very few suppliers of ubuntu desktop on vmdk exist (3 to be exact).

This seems to be focused on vm creation and distribution, and for now I consider this the de-facto website to go to for ubuntu desktop vmdk's: http://vmplanet.net/

These guys seem to have vm creation and distribution as a side-project to their main line of business: http://www.quotrader.com/
http://www.bitconstructor.com/

but the highest-voted answer is as follows:

You can find many VMs on VMware's site.

Open the site and go to "Virtual Appliances"; Ubuntu LTS 11.4 is one of the many images there.

The newest Ubuntu 11.04 VMware appliance starts out of the box with a desktop looking like Gnome 2.x, but can be transformed to start the Unity desktop from Ubuntu. Contrary to the basic Ubuntu 11.04 image this one has the latest VMware Tools installed.

Note: The VMware's site also seems to have Ubuntu 12.04, both desktop and server versions but it's the VMWare store and you have to buy it.

The OP also adds:

just make sure you have installed the latest vmware player so you don't have problems like I had with vmplayer not being able to run an virtual image made with a newer version.

Community
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Nitin Venkatesh
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    VMware's site redirects to their store so those images cost, the cost is not prohibitive but still requires accounts, credit card etc, free would be good – Eduard Florinescu Sep 26 '12 at 19:31
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    @EduardFlorinescu Oh I see..The http://vmplanet.net/ link has a lot of vmdk files with different distros preinstalled though.. – Nitin Venkatesh Sep 26 '12 at 19:34
  • search no further I am already downloading something from http://vmplanet.net/ and then check back here with result – Eduard Florinescu Sep 26 '12 at 19:37
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    nitstorm(accepted), but please make sure to edit your answer and specify that the vmware links http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/ redirects to the store, is fair for the reader, also I tried the vmplanet link and took the 12.04 ubuntu and it works : vmplanet.net/2012/07/ubuntu-12-04-lts, just make sure you have installed the latest vmware player so you don't have problems like I had with vmplayer not being able to run an virtual image made with a newer version. – Eduard Florinescu Sep 27 '12 at 08:13
  • @nitstorm: vmplanet.net looks very promising, thanks for that, but you should definitely paste this link into your answer, I think this way you would get much more upvotes than in the case of linking a site where you can just BUY prebuilt virtual machines... at least from me. Thanks in advance. – Sk8erPeter Feb 28 '13 at 14:57
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Hyper V has some Ubuntu presets see Run Ubuntu virtual machines made even easier with Hyper-V Quick Create

Eduard Florinescu
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The VMWare tools for Fusion-5 doesn't work on Ubuntu 14.04LTS. VMware is recommending using Fusion-6 to build a Ubuntu 14.04 image and using it on Fusion-5. Hence finding a pre-built image with VMware tools installed would be great.

I found one, which seems to be working: http://www.trendsigma.net/vmware/ubuntu1404t.html I'm just not sure of the source.

Ben Franklin
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If you determine that a ready-made image is not available, installing either the server or desktop iso in VMWare Player is exceptionally easy, at least from my limited experience. On a Win7 Pro, 32-bit, laptop the Easy Install (most likely a part of VMWare tools) made the installation happen with minimal keyboard work on my part. About all I needed to supply was my username and password.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck

geoB
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    I think that might have proved an easier approach than searching for an vmware clone image but if there is a ready images is way much faster, now that I started this way I will find a solution that will work also for other people (+1) – Eduard Florinescu Sep 26 '12 at 21:17