Is anyone using VMware under a Wayland host?

I’ve been using VMware Player (free version) for a while now and it’s been working fine. Recently I switched to Wayland and VMware’s grab input behavior broke. The guest gets most keys correctly but Alt and Super are intercepted by the host. Clicking on the vm also gives me a remote desktop popup on the host prompting to allow remote interaction which gives some weird results both on the host and guest. Apparently this is a known issue with gnome(?) and the only workaround is to add Super to any shortcut (eg. Super+Alt+Tab) but this obviously doesn’t work for all shortcuts.

I’m using Gnome on Fedora and Ubuntu and they seem to have the same behavior (but no remote desktop popup on Ubuntu). Both work fine on X11. I’ve also tested both VMware player 16 and 17.

So if anyone is using VMware on Wayland, do you know of a combination that works? Does it work on KDE? Should I just switch to Virtualbox? I’d really rather keep Wayland if possible.

just_another_person, (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    MicrowavedTea,

    Sorry gotta disagree here. I know several people who use Workstation professionally. Even on Linux

    possiblylinux127,

    Switch to KVM based virtualization such as gnome boxes or virtual manager

    abc,

    What do you like about GNOME Boxes?

    possiblylinux127,

    It is simpler and runs as a local user

    TCB13, (edited )
    @TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

    I’ve a very bad experience with GNOME boxes, both VMware and VirtualBox seem to outperform the thing and work better (drag and drop and resolution scaling, actual GPU acceleration).

    boredsquirrel,

    This. It is free, and good.

    possiblylinux127,

    The best in the industry

    avidamoeba,
    @avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

    I had to switch the computer where I needed VMware to an Xorg session. 🥹

    MicrowavedTea,

    Sadly that means the second screen not working properly

    avidamoeba,
    @avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

    Fractional scaling is also a bit subpar.

    StrangeAstronomer,

    virt-manager for the win!

    eya,
    @eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Better question is who is using VMware at all. QEMU+virt-manager on top.

    MicrowavedTea,

    Honestly, I was forced to use it for a project and then just stuck with it for its simplicity

    possiblylinux127,

    Why?

    MicrowavedTea,

    If you don’t need many features it’s easier to quickly set up and create a vm than VirtualBox. Well until now anyway. I haven’t tried the other alternatives mentioned here, they might be better in that aspect too.

    krolden,
    @krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

    virt-manager.org

    possiblylinux127,

    Virtual box is slow and requires kernel modules just like VMware. Seems easier to use something native.

    LeFantome,

    If you want simple, GNOME Boxes is hard to beat.

    eltimablo,

    It's got really good hardware graphics acceleration.

    possiblylinux127,

    So does KVM

    skullgiver, (edited )
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    TCB13,
    @TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

    +1 here, intel on laptop.

    eltimablo,

    Yeah, that's what I'm referring to. I've never successfully turned on hardware acceleration when running Windows guests, and I don't think Gnome Boxes even exposes the option.

    possiblylinux127,

    I just flipped the toggle and it worked. This is probably a “your millage will vary” moment.

    Additionally GPU acceleration has received a lot of love recently as there has been a push for Foss VDI

    HeyLow,

    Specifically for Windows vms without a GPU passed to it, VMware tends to do a way better job at least in my testing

    possiblylinux127,

    If you install the virtio drivers KVM based virtualization it will work way better. You can even copy and paste

    avidamoeba, (edited )
    @avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

    Yeah, Windows on KVM without GPU acceleration is not ideal. Also setting up a VM with all the bells and whistles like a shared folder, USB, printing is still easier on VMware than virt-manager. I’ve recently switched all my Windows VMs from VMware to KVM/virt-manager.

    aleph, (edited )
    @aleph@lemm.ee avatar

    I had the same issue and was unable to find a solution.

    I’d say switch to gnome-boxes or virt-managerif possible - they don’t have this issue with Wayland and perform better than VMWare / Virtual Box anyway.

    MicrowavedTea,

    Interesting, I didn’t know about virt-manager. I might try one of those, thanks for the suggestion.

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