How to setup a Linux Ubuntu Virtual Machine in VMware Player?

This tutorial is intended to help Windows users to install a Ubuntu virtual machine using VMware Player.
In Windows 10, you may prefer the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), so fell free to give it a try.

1) Download the Ubuntu distribution of your choice

Go to ubuntu.com and download the Ubuntu distribution of your choice. Without loss of generality, the tutorial will employ Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64-bit (Bionic Beaver), but is also applied to other 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 Ubuntu website.
3) Click on Next.
Load Ubuntu ISO file

Configure Username and password

Configure User

Name the Virtual Machine

1) Select a name of your choice for the VM.
2) Select a Folder in which the VM will be stored.
Select VM Folder
3) Click on Next.

Configure the VM storage

1) Specify the maximum allowed disk size for the VM storage.
2) Select either single or multiple files to store the VM.
3) Click on Next.
Select Guest OS

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.
Create VM
Click on Finish.

3) Customize the VM

On the main dialog of VMware Player, select the VM and click on Edit virtual machine settings at the bottom right.

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 VM.
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 VMware Tools

Run the VM and login with your user credentials. If you look for the shared directory "D:", it should be located at /mnt/hgfs/. At this point, the folder hgfs does not exist, yet. So we need to reinstall the VMware Tools.
Click on Player -> Manage ->Reinstall VMware Tools... Install VMWare Tools

Double-click on the CD icon that will appear on the Desktop.
Double-click

Move the compressed file to the Desktop. Install VMWare Tools

Extract the file on the Desktop (right click on the file and select Extract Here).
Install VMWare Tools

Double-click on the extracted folder. Double-click again to enter the folder vmware-tools-distrib. Look for a file ended with ".pl". It will be executed.
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, type:
 sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d
Install VMWare Tools

5) 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
List the contents of your HOME folder and you will find the d link for the shared folder. 
 ls ~
Install VMWare Tools
That's it!

Hope this tutorial helps!
cheers,
Bruno
Last update: March 14th, 2019