When I started the LinuxVSM Project, I started it to help myself—to solve a problem caused by data faults and the long tail between updates. Now, with version 5, LinuxVSM has grown steadily. It is no longer a tool just for myself, but also for others. It even has folks verifying it to other operating systems. Version 5 adds some very interesting features, ones that have changed how I use LinuxVSM and hopefully how others use it as well.
There was a reason for the long tail between updates and why certain parts of the products in VMware Software Manager were out of date. There is quite a bit of work involved in finding where to download everything. Even inside VMware, getting that data had to be nontrivial. Actually, for LinuxVSM, I had to do that part manually, and it was time consuming, to say the least.
The biggest change in v5 of LinuxVSM was the introduction of the --oauth option. This option triggered a fallback login into My VMware directly. VSM uses its own login mechanism and My VMware another. So, v5 marries the two into a useful whole. With this introduction, my manual process to keep things up to date went from many steps and lookups down to three easy-to-create commands. (I could do it in one command, but I like to have some control over when things publish to GitHub.)
All in all, simplifying support was the main reason for v5—that, and to meet the requirements that come in from other users.
That is the main purpose. LinuxVSM has grown and has reached v5, the users. They make suggestions, and I implement those suggestions, such that now, there is a tools section in the GitHub repository. The tools will grow as suggestions come in from the community. The main ones are to download all of one type of package, iso, etc.—to download your favorite packages and to create a VAMI repository so that you can do local updates.
All these tool suggestions have come from the community. While some are based on my needs (favorites), the rest make use of aspects of the product that I know as the developer or use features I added in to support my own install scripts and functions such as --dlg or the ability to download a single package.
Those who contribute offer ideas and testing against supported operating systems (MacOS, Debian-based Linux distributions, or Fedora-based distributions) as well as those operating systems not directly supported, such as ArchLinux and Ubuntu embedded within Windows. Everyone has unique needs. The goals of any GitHub project are to meet those needs and also produce a usable product.
As more and more people use LinuxVSM, the repository and related tools will improve. I think it is pretty solid now, but there is always room for improvement and updates. In addition to solving problems, there are several things that also come to light, including solutions to problems when using the tool. Some of those require removing temporary files. The following command does that now:
vsm.sh --clean
This clears all the temporary storage and credential stores and forces a reset on the next run. This option was introduced in v5.0.6. Many issues have been reported about network, credential, and other errors. The --clean option should fix most if not all of them.
However, there is one persistent problem I cannot fix within the tool. That is the failure to log in or get any packages from LinuxVSM. The problem here is one that has to be solved by VMware. It appears that any account that had not been used in a while or did not have an entitlement was dropped from being able to use the VMware Software Manager (which is no longer supported). Since LinuxVSM makes use of the same functions, the tool inherits this condition.
Even with all the work done to reach v5, it is crucial to remember that without VMware, we would not be able to use this tool. I commend them on their continued support of the community.
I thank the community for all their assistance. Keep those suggestions coming! Special thanks to @ivirtualex, @mwvme, @magneet_nl, and @WilkITWizard for all their help, testing, and comments.
