Just an FYI:

I dowloaded the vmware and installed it for free:

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

the above website will get you a serial number. Just fill in the data and poof there it is.

btw: bogus data works too.

I installed it via automatix then just entered the serial via the website. works great.

I don't know why you would give bogus data when it's completely free in the first place?

I've never installed it via automatix either.

It is free, but it does require a serial to operate.
Only VMWare Player doesn't require a serial.
The official tarball version works fine on Debian sarge and Sid- it even has prebuilt modules for Sarge.
Don't know about Ubuntu, but anyway I would never use Automatix for anything...

Yea - I read bad things about automatix after I used it - oh well it all works good.

As for bogus data - I just hate giving out my email on most forms.

Can understand the email thing. VMware also send you some mailings, but you can opt-out of these easily enough.