Hello everyone, I'm kind of new here. I have the newest Zorin Core OS that I'm trying to get setup and running smoothly on my VMWare workstation (newest edition). But still trying to decide if I want to spend so much time and effort to get it to work. It's really frustrating so far.
So for a LONG time, I couldn't get the sound to work. I went into settings and saw that the audio levels were moving up and down, so there was sound, but not coming out of my speakers. Read a million posts on here and other websites about how to fix the problem and nothing was working until I just happened to stumble upon a fix myself accidentally. I was in the main VMWare menu, where you can select your virtual machine/s. And I started just clicking around everywhere to see what was there and low and behold I found this Sound Card settings. So I messed around in there, and low and behold the sound finally came on! After days and hrs trying to fix the issue with all these crazy other solutions that involved the Terminal and commands and stuff that are NOT user friendly at all, I sort of figured it out. But it turns out, it doesn’t solve the issue. It's only temporary. EVERY time I turn on the VMWare Workstation program from my Windows 10 desktop, I have to go in and TURN on the sound or sound card. It doesn’t automatically come on. EVEN THOUGH I have the "Connect at power on" box checked! And I have the Specify host sound card set to my Realtek speakers. Yet, everytime I turn on the VMWare program, I have to manually go in and TURN ON the sound card?!?!
Then the other strange thing that keeps happening in regards to the sound problems is, even if I turn on the sound in the Virtual Machine Settings, the sound just randomly goes off sometimes!?!?! I’ll be watching/listening to some LoFi radio on YouTube for example and trying to go through the entire Menu system of Zorin, just seeing what it has, what settings can be changed, stuff like that. Just trying to get “used to it.” And every once and a while when I open a certain menu or app, the sound goes off on youtube?!?!?! And yet if I go back into Zorin audio settings, it still shows the sound is on and you can see the volume levels going up and down. Which is super frustrating and makes no sense. And it never comes back on, unless I turn off VMWare and restart the whole thing. So that’s the first major problem that is really making me not want to switch over to Linux.
The second problem I’m finding right away is that my Logitech MX Master 3S mouse's side buttons don’t do anything in Zorin?!?! Meaning, the forward and backwards buttons don't work. So I can’t just use my thumb to click backwards or forwards through web pages, files or anything. And that’s SUPER annoying and ridiculous that it doesn’t work. And again, I’ve looked up this problem as much or more than the sound problem and NOTHING is working. I’ve also gone into the Logitech software on my main host Windows desktop, to see what the buttons are assigned as, and sure enough, they are assigned exactly how I want them. So it’s not like the Mouse is the issue. It’s either VMWare or Zorin. Then when looking up all these crazy solutions to the problem, one that comes up often is, It wants me to find the .vmx file on my main computer (which took me forever to find, because hardly any website can explain in very simple and easy to understand words, HOW to find this .vmx file). Then after messing around forever trying to find this .vmx file (that is NOT in a notepad format already) it wants me to put this little section of code in at the bottom:
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"
So I do that. And guess what? Nothing happens.
This whole experience so far has been really disappointing and frustrating and I’m really confused so far. I keep reading from “everyone” on the internet that Linux is better. That running a Linux distro through a Virtual Machine is the safest way to compute. That Linux is easier to use then Windows or MAC OS. That’s it’s safer, more secure, and just better in every way. Yet, it can’t even play sound or use simple mouse buttons right off the bat?! That does NOT sound like the best, the easiest or anything good. And that is extremely frustrating. I WANT to make Zorin my main everyday “driver” OS. I love how it looks, love how simple it is, and that it is more secure and has such a great community backing it up (all the Linux distros actually). But to have to go to SUCH great lengths just to get a mouse or speakers to work is stupid and so silly. It makes me wonder how hard it's going to be to do anything else on it!? I already feel like I’m wasting my time going to such great lengths JUST to get my mouse and speakers to work. But I really want to see if I can get this to work. But not knowing enough about computers as a lot of you do, I don’t know if this is a VMWare issue or a Zorin issue? Nor how to solve it.
But here’s to hoping someone can help me figure this out and get this OS up and running properly. Thank you