dev-guides

Setting up a Debian Linux VM in VMware

These instructions were written for the Spring 2024 semester of COMS 4118 at Columbia University.

About Debian

There are many GNU+Linux distributions out there. Debian is our choice. Start by reading a little bit about it.

Download and Install VMware desktop hypervisor

Download and install the latest version of VMware desktop hypervisor for your computer:

Install VMware as a 30-day trial for now. Registered students will receive VMware Workstation/Fusion Pro license in 2-3 weeks. You can then enter the license to remove the trial status.

Download Debian

The current stable distribution of Debian is version 12, codenamed bookworm. For this class, we will be using Debian version 11, codenamed bullseye.

Always verify the checksums of what you download.

Create a VM

Create a new virtual machine in VMware using the Debian ISO image you just downloaded.

For the OS for the VM, choose Debian 11.x 64-bit if available. Depending on your platform, it may not be an option yet. In that case, choose Other Linux 5.x and later kernel 64-bit.

If prompted to select boot firmware, choose the default provided.

If you are using an M1/M2 machine, the above two options may be selected for you by default upon selecting the Debian ISO image.

The default settings for memory and storage are probably too small. Customize your VM as follows. Note that on some platforms, you may need to press Finish and create the VM before you can open settings to edit the VM memory and storage.

Installing Debian

After configuring the VM, start the VM. The VM will now boot from its CD-ROM drive containing the Debian GNU/Linux install disk, which is virtually mapped to the ISO file that you downloaded.

Use the “graphical installer”. You’ll be guided through a somewhat lengthy installation process. Most of the default settings are acceptable – below is an outline for some of the choices you should be making:

Time to reboot into your new system!

Setting up your Debian VM

Once you reboot, you’ll be greeted with a login screen. Use the user account you created earlier (e.g. we would use debbie here as our username).

Welcome to your VM’s desktop environment! Your system may ask you about configuring your desktop. Just select the default configuration for now – you can always tweak it later.

If you chose Xfce as your desktop environment, you should see a dock at the bottom of your screen, quite like the one on macOS. Open the terminal.

You’ll be logged into your user account, which does not have superuser/root privileges yet. Switch into the root account using the following command:

$ su -

Type in the password you set for the root account. Now you should be logged in as root:

#

You’ll notice through this guide (and others) that certain shell commands begin with $, while others begin with #. These shell prompts represent the permissions you should run the command with; you should not be typing the prompts in. The convention is that commands with $ should be run as a regular user (e.g. debbie), whereas commands beginning with # should be run as a superuser (e.g. root, or using sudo). Speaking of which, your VM won’t have sudo installed yet! We’ll do that first.

Installing your first package

Update your package lists:

# apt update

This retrieves the most up-to-date list of packages from APT’s repositories, which tell apt all the things it can install. First, let’s upgrade all packages that can be upgraded:

# apt upgrade

Now we can install sudo, as well as some other useful packages for getting through the rest of setup:

# apt install sudo git build-essential net-tools linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Feel free to also install any programs you are accustomed to using, such as vim, emacs, tmux, htop, etc. Just add these to the list of programs for apt for install in the above command, after net-tools.

Setting up sudo

sudo stands for SuperUserDO – it helps you run commands with superuser permissions from a regular account. To set this up, you will need to edit the /etc/sudoers configuration file by running:

# visudo

It will launch an editor (probably vim if you installed, nano if you didn’t). Add the following to the bottom:

# The basic structure of a user spec looks like this:
# who where = (as_whom) how: what
debbie ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Of course, if you chose a different username, use that instead of debbie. Save your changes and quit the text editor.

If you’re still logged in as root at this point from using su -, logout to return to your regular user account:

# exit
$

Now that you added that line to your sudoers file, you should be able to run the following command from your regular user account, without having to type in your password:

$ sudo echo "I am a sudoer, hear me roar!"
I am a sudoer, hear me roar!

Now, when you come across a # shell prompt in any future guide, you may use sudo instead from your user account. For example, to update your packages again, instead of running (as root):

# apt update

You can instead run (as debbie):

$ sudo apt update

Disable Power Management

By default, Debian tries to do its own power management. This is unnecessary in a VM, and may cause your VM to become unresponsive after being inactive for some time.

To disable power management in the Xfce desktop environment, open up the Applications menu on the top left corner of the GUI, and go to Settings -> Power Manager to open up the Xfce Power Manager. On the System tab, make sure it never goes to sleep, and on the Display tab, uncheck “Display power management”.

Disable GUI on boot (optional)

If you prefer to boot directly into a terminal prompt on your serial console, rather than fussing with the graphical desktop environment, you can disable it by running the following:

# systemctl set-default multi-user.target

Now, once you boot, you’ll be greeted with a text-based serial console:

Debian GNU/Linux 11 poliwhirl tty1
poliwhirl login: _

You can login with your regular credentials (e.g. as debbie). If you need to open up your graphical desktop environment, you can manually launch it:

$ startx

You can always re-enable the booting into your desktop environment:

# systemctl set-default graphical.target

Snapshots

Once you’ve set up your VM to your satisfaction, you should take a preliminary snapshot. Snapshots capture the current running state of the VM, store it, and then allows you to revert to that state at a later point. In general, you should snapshot your VM before executing something that can compromise the system. Taking a snapshot now will allow you to revert to a clean state in case your VM breaks somehow.

If you’re running low on disk space, you should take a snapshot while your VM is shut down. Otherwise, VMWare will snapshot the VM’s current memory. While this may be useful sometimes, it adds several extra gigabytes to your snapshot size.

Using your Debian VM

Two tips you may find useful for using your VM include using SSH to connect to your VM, which you may find more convenient at times instead of using the graphical console, and setting up vim to do development in your VM.