If you have vmware installed in one of your powerful computers or servers, it gives you the flexibility to install multiple guest operating systems as you desire (as long as performance is up to spec). I have Ubuntu 7.04 installed as a guest OS along with Solaris 10. However, each one has its own quirks in as far as dealing with the VMWare Tools – a set of utilities that optimizes the use of the specific guest OS.
HowToForge has an article detailing the various ways of installing VMWare Tools on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and PCLinuxOS.
If I remember correctly, I had to install the development tools on Ubuntu to maximize VMWare Tools because there is an optional part that requires as compile.