Installing VMWare Server Beta on Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake

Edit: There’s now a more thorough guide over at HowToForge

I started with a server install of Ubuntu, and to install VMWare server you need a desktop, a compiler, kernel headers and a few other odds and ends

Easy way to get a desktop is go the whole hog and a give a home to a Gnome…

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Reboot and experience Ubuntu in all its brown chocolately glory. Next you need some build tools, none of this stuff comes by default, so go get it..

sudo apt-get install build-essential

The install wants inetd or xinetd, I went with xinetd…

sudo apt-get install xinetd

Now get your kernel version with uname

uname -a
Linux hostname 2.6.15-23-server ...

Use that info to fetch the kernel headers you need

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.15-23-server

I found it useful to go and symlink the headers to the place the VMWare installer expects to find them

cd /usr/src/
sudo ln -s linux-headers-2.6.15-23-server linux

Now you are ready to install VMWare Server. Grab the Linux tarball from the VMWare site, unpack it, and run the installer

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

You should be able to accept the defaults for most questions unless you have specific virtual machine networking needs. Once installed, start the VMWare console from the Applications -> System Tools menu.

Easy!

5 thoughts on “Installing VMWare Server Beta on Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake

  1. DGM

    Excellent. I’m a new Ubuntu convert, and this was one piece that I hadn’t tried yet that I knew that I needed. The vmware image even copied nicely from windows and ran perfectly. 🙂

  2. Steve

    Good work, followed it to the letter, worked..

    Now I wonder if its quicker to download the desktop version for the next install!

  3. elifbade

    Hi, thank you for your explanation but I could not install it easily, I encountered some problems. Can You help about the below points:
    I copied the error part, can you help me, please?
    Building the vmmon module.

    Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
    make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only’
    make -C /lib/modules/2.6.24-24-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
    make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-24-generic’
    CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
    In file included from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/vmware.h:25,
    from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:48:
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/vm_basic_types.h:160: error: conflicting types for ‘uintptr_t’
    include/linux/types.h:40: error: previous declaration of ‘uintptr_t’ was here
    In file included from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
    from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:37:5: warning: “VMW_HAVE_EPOLL” is not defined
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:43:5: warning: “VMW_HAVE_EPOLL” is not defined
    In file included from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
    from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:60: error: conflicting types for ‘poll_initwait’
    include/linux/poll.h:65: error: previous declaration of ‘poll_initwait’ was here
    In file included from /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:80:
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘…’ before ‘compat_exit’
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘…’ before ‘exit_code’
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘_syscall1’
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:145: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:149: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriver_Ioctl’:
    /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1661: error: ‘struct mm_struct’ has no member named ‘dumpable’
    make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only] Error 2
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-24-generic’
    make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
    make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only’
    Unable to build the vmmon module.

    For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please
    visit our Web site at “http://www.vmware.com/download/modules/modules.html” and
    “http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/prebuilt_modules_linux.html”.

    Execution aborted.

  4. Matthew

    no matter what I do I get the smp_lock.h missing error. I’m using kernel 3.0.15 have installed many different headers with several sym links. Nothign works. At this point I have been completely unable to install VMWare on ubuntu 11.X

    Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
    /home/mamontgo/vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:37:28: fatal error: linux/smp_lock.h: No such file or directory
    compilation terminated.
    make[2]: *** [/home/mamontgo/vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/vmci-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/home/mamontgo/vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/vmci-only] Error 2
    make: *** [vmci.ko] Error 2
    There is a problem compiling the vmci module after it was patched. 🙁

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