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!
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. 🙂
Good work, followed it to the letter, worked..
Now I wonder if its quicker to download the desktop version for the next install!
I was able to get vmware tools going on debian – thanks very,very much….
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.
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. 🙁