how to ubuntu 12.04 desktop on vmplayer 5.x

• Root User Problem

By default, the Root account password is locked in Ubuntu.

This means that you cannot login as Root directly or use the su command to become the Root user. 

since the Root account physically exists it is still possible to run programs with root-level privileges.

This is where sudo comes in - it allows authorized users (normally "Administrative" users) to run certain programs as Root without having to know the root password.

This means that in the terminal you should use sudo for commands that require root privileges; simply prepend sudo to all the commands you would normally run as Root

• Enable Disable Root account

To enable the Root account (i.e. set a password) use:

sudo passwd root

Re-disabling your root account

sudo passwd -dl root

• To download packages , use aptitude

sudo aptitude install g++ 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

• how to convert .deb to .rpm package

The "alien" tool can convert rpm to deb

• to install .deb package

sudo dpkg -i package.deb

• to list installed packages

"dpkg --get-selections" which will give us a list of all the currently installed packages.

•  to install source package

gunzip mysql-5.5.27-linux2.6-i686.tar.gz 

tar xfv mysql-5.5.27-linux2.6-i686.tar

• to install mysql server

sudo aptitude install mysql-server 

sudo aptitude install mysql-workbench

• to enable shared folder on windows 7 host

Virtual Machine settings
Folder sharing = Always Enabled

you can list shared folder under  /mnt/hgfs/ directory