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!