How to setup a Mint Virtual Machine with VMware Player?

This tutorial is intended to help Windows users to install a Mint virtual machine using VMware Player.
In Windows 10, you may prefer to use another Linux distro, such as Ubuntu, in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), so fell free to give it a try.
For Ubuntu Virtual Machine, this tutorial will also help, as Ubuntu and Mint setups are similar to each other. Hope it helps!
Dr. Bruno Kassar

1) Download the Mint distro of your choice

Go to linuxmint.com and download the Linux Mint distro of your choice. Without loss of generality, the tutorial will be carried out for Linux Mint 19.1 (Tessa) Cinnamon 64-bit, but can also apply to other Mint distributions and also Ubuntu distributions.

2) Create a new virtual machine

In VMware Workstation Player, click on Create a New Virtual Machine.

1) Select Installer disc image file (iso):
2) Click on Browse and select the iso file which you have just downloaded from the Mint website. Load Mint ISO file

3) Click on Next.

Select the Guest Operating System

Help VMware identify the OS.
1) Select Linux
2) Select Ubuntu 64-bit.
Select Guest OS

3) Click on Next.

Rename the Operating System

1) Select a name of your choice for the VM.
2) Select a Folder in which the VM will be stored.
Select Guest OS

3) Click on Next.

Configure VM storage

1) Specify the maximum allowed disk size for the VM storage.
2) Select either single or multiple files to stored the VM.
Select Guest OS

3) Click on Next.

Ready to Create the VM

You can either click on Finish to create the Virtual Machine, or Customize the Hardware first. If you do not customize the hardware at this stage, do not worry, as you can do it later. Select Guest OS

Click on Finish.

3) Customize the VM

On the main dialog, select the newly created VM and click on Edit virtual machine settings on the bottom right.
The default settings may not be the best for your needs, so let us edit it.

Customize the RAM memory

The default RAM memory is 1Gb. Here, I will set it to 4Gb, as depicted below.
Configure RAM

Customize the Number of Cores

The default number of processors if 1. Here I will edit it to allow 4 processors. Configure Processors

Share Windows Folders with the VM

In the example, I will share the D:/ drive with the Virtual Machine. 1) Go to the TAB Options
2) Select Shared Folders on the left tree
3) Select Always enabled
4) Click on Add...
Share Folders

Hit the OK button.

4) Install Mint

In the VMware main dialog, click on Play virtual machine. VMware will start the VM for the first time.
Double-click on the CD icon Install Linux Mint.
Install Mint

Select your preferred OS language

Select your keyboard format

Optionally install third-party software

Install Now

Leave the option Erase disk and install Linux Mint. Do not worry, the disk to be erased is the disk managed by the virtual machine. Install Mint4

Hit Continue

Select your timezone

Identify yourself and the machine

Restart Mint

Hit Enter on the keyboard

5) Install VMware Tools

Extract the tar.gz file onto the Desktop.
Install VMWare Tools

Double-click on the folder just created on the Desktop.
Install VMWare Tools

Right-click on the background and select Open in Terminal.
Install VMWare Tools

On the terminal, type:
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
If you desire to use the default settings (recommended), type:
sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d
Install VMWare Tools

6) Access the Shared Folders

In the terminal, go to /mnt/hgfs/. You will find the shared folders there. You may create a symbolic link for each folder to simplify the access. In the example, the shared folder is named D. A symbolic link to it in the HOME directory may be created with the following command:
ln -s /mnt/hgfs/D/ ~/d
Install VMWare Tools

Hope this tutorial helps.
cheers,
Bruno

Last update: March 11th, 2019