UPDATE: This post has been updated for VMware Server 1.0.5 on Ubuntu 8.04. If you are running Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll need to follow those instructions.
My previous tutorial on installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 has been wildly successful but I also realize now that it has become a bit out of date. This tutorial is an update with a few simplified steps. It will be nice when VMware Server makes it into canonicals partner repository (as is available on Ubuntu 7.04), but until then these few steps should work for most of us.
As an update from the previous post, for those that are curious, here is an explanation. At the time of that writing there was a slight issue with the current kernel that required the suggested patch. Since that post was published the kernel has been updated and the patch no longer needed. It doesn’t appear to conflict with anything if it is run with the patch, but I felt that this warranted an updated tutorial.
Installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”
- Download VMware Server from the VMware website.
- Unpack the contents of the archive to your system (perhaps /tmp)
- sudo aptitude install build-essential xinetd linux-headers-$(uname -r)
- Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), cd /tmp/vmware-server (or wherever you unpacked the archive)
- sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Answer all of the questions presented to you. The defaults should be fine if you are unsure about any. When everything has finished you should be able to launch VMware Server from your desktop menu under Applications > System Tools.
The last step in the installer should ask you for your VMware Server serial number. While VMware Server is free (free as in beer) it does require a serial number to use and is not free software (free as in freedom). If you need a serial number generated you can register for your VMware Server serial number(s) here.
Hi Chris,
if you are interested, I wrote a quick guide to installing the VMware Server 2 beta on Gutsy on my site here – http://www.vmreference.com
Thought you might like to steal it for yourself.
Love the past tutorials. Cheers, Forbes.
@Forbes – thanks. I think I may have seen that in doing some research today. Expect a beta tutorial for vmware server 2.0 beta coming on monday.
Thanks!
Is there any estimation for when vmware server will be added to the repositories?
And the other question I have is whether using this method will conflict in some way when vmware server is added to the repositories?
Best regards
I tried this and all went fine until it asked me this:
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build/include]
Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.
Building the vmmon module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
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’
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-2.6.22-14-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.
I found it far more effective to get the rpm and convert it using alien. (alien -scripts vmware…rpm) You can then install the resulting .deb using dpkg. You still have to run the vmware-config.pl script.
The advantage of this approach is that you can uninstall without leaving files all over your machine. That will be especially valuable if an official package ends up in the partner repository.
And for 64 bit users, you’ll have to run alien on a 32 bit machine, and install the resulting deb with dpkg –force-architecture
What happened to the Beta tutorial???
Chris,
Thanks for the tutorials. I was attempting to install these over the past week.
I believe there are a few extra steps required for the Server version, correct?
Thanks,
Victor
I was about to install vmware this way but finally settled on virtualbox instead since it had .debs.
Will this manual install not clog upp /usr/* with files that are hard to uninstall (and that might conflict with later vmware-installations when/if vmware is moved back to ubuntu repos?).
Thank you very much!!! It worked like a charm.
Is this also compatible with Ubuntu 7.10 Server edition as well? Is there anything special I need to be aware of? Like X needing to be installed?
anyone figured out how to solve the problem Dan mentioned when the vmmon is being installed I’ve tried to install repeatedly but keep getting stopped by this
The Tutorial fails to mention that you need “Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop” as you host OS. If you have installed the minimal version of “Ubuntu 7.10 Server” then X-Windows is missing and you will get this message:
“libX11.so.6 cannot open shared object file”
To resolve this issue type the following command:
“apt-get install x-window-system-core”
If you are lucky enough to read this before you install vmware server then you should do this as step 3a in the above tutorial.
gr8 tutorial, ty!
For Dan’s problem (“vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21” when building vmmon) the solution is here:
http://satukubik.com/2007/06/01/installing-vmware-on-ubuntu-704/
I installed the server recently but realised I couldn’t use it the way I thought and I was wondering if there was a way to remove it. So many guides to install, but nothing (yet) on removing the thing.
For basic uninstall all you need to do is run:
sudo /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-vix.pl
Im unsure if this is all you need to do.
Hopefully this will help others:
I could not get VMware server (1.04) to install on my new Gutsy machine. Turns out the problem was that I had installed 64-bit Linux. From something I saw on another site, I installed ia32-libs, re-ran vmware-config.pl and it worked correctly.
I followed the above instructions to the letter and everything went just fine, but I do not have VMWare listed under Applications>System Tools.
Great tutorial, thanks for the help!
Never mind, I followed Forbes’ link above and got myself all straightened out. Yay for VMWare!
For anyone looking for the patch (I needed it to get vmware running on my 7.10 server), it has been updated recently and most of the links I have come across are now broken (resulting in 404s). Here is a working link to a version of the patch dated 11/28/07: http://knihovny.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmware-any-any-update115.tar.gz
I could not get networking to work. I have VMWARE server 1.4 installed on Ubuntu 7.10.
I have a windows xp guest machine, but I can’t get to anything on the network. Any suggestions
I installed Gutsy on a Dell 1420n using the DELL Gutsy ISO and then installed a licensed copy of VMware Workstation 6.02. Then I installed Gutsy as a guest using the official Gutsy install CD from Ubuntu (not the DELL Gutsy ISO).
The Guest Gutsy worked fine and the networking was working. (I used the “NAT” vmware network config option). I could use Firefix to surf the net okay.
Then I downloaded and installed all the Gutsy updates using the Update Manager. It said the updates were all applied perfectly.
It then said I should re-boot Gutsy.
When Gutsy (the guest) came back up I had lost all networking. Runningg “ifconfig” shows only “lo” (127.0.0.l) and nothing else.
Before I lost my network by applying the Gutsy updates, running “ifconfig” showed (in addition to “lo”:
dgg2@rdgg2-desktop:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:89:34:22
inet addr:192.168.216.129 Bcast:192.168.216.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe89:3422/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:859 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:549 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1158480 (1.1 MB) TX bytes:50663 (49.4 KB)
Interrupt:16 Base address:0x2000
I’m a newbie to Vmware and Ubuntu.
I defined a 2nd Guest machine and did the entire process a second time, and got the exact same results: I lost my network as soon as I rebooted after applying the Gutsy updates.
I would very much appreciate suggestion on what command to issue or what files to edit in order to get my network back. I’m going to define a 3rd guest machine and install Gutsy a 3rd time, install the VMWare tools, and then use that as a reference to see if I can figure out what the difference is between that guest (where networking will fine) versus the other two guests where there is no networking. I have not idea what to look for in comparing them, but I don’t know what else to do.
I keep getting this but don’t know why
Unable to get the last modification timestamp of the destination file
/etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key.
Wonderful, just installed vmware according your tutorial, and it works! Tx. a lot!
It works here as well, great. Thanks!
To whoever said you need Ubuntu desktop:
You can install this on the server version without installing xserver. VMware has another product that lets you connect to vmware servers and manage the virtual machines.
This is what I do. I have an XP machine that I use, and Ubuntu server. I installed the software on here and just connect to my server to manage my virtual machines.
Easy :]
Hi,
How can I uninstall VMware? My installation does work. The VMWARE won’t start. The icon come up on the task bar and
shutdown after few seconds.
I’d like to try to reinstall it.
I running Gusty.
Thanks,
@Sidim – I believe you can use:
sudo vmware-uninstall.pl
..but do ‘sudo vmware-[TAB TAB]’ and it should show you the exact command.
@Sidim It says that it uninstalled successfully, yet when i reinstall it, says that it found a previous VMWare installation… still stuck…
there is a problem on dell latitude D820 (2×2 GHz, 3GB RAM).
allocate 1500mb ram for image and its using lots of CPU – host system does noting. Alocationg 512 Mb fixes the problem.
lots of people have this problem, but there is no soultion for this…..
I will have to use windows 🙁
Hi — I have the same problem as damoisture above — installed vmware but it doesn’t show up on applications/system tools — not sure how to run vmware now. I looked at the reference card … and will read it again … but nothing is obvious to me.
Thanks in advance …
oh — further details — using 7.10 64 bit as host, installed 2.0 beta — installation went without a hitch (well, appeared to go without a hitch !) …
RobertGloverJr:
Granted this is really late looking at the date of your post, but make sure you update your VMWare Tools. I just had the same thing happen to me and I resolved it.
Run the vmware-tools-updgrader in your /usr/sbin directory. Make sure you’re root when you do it (or via sudo). Have it run the config when it’s finished and then reboot Ubuntu when it’s done.
That should fix your problem.
Cracked it…. I am running the 64 bit AMD version of Ubuntu Desktop 7.10.
You need to install ia32-libs before installing Vmware 1.05 as this is a 32 bit app…. you can do this using apt-get install ia32-libs –fix-missing.
Now at least the console starts up. And HURRAH! It works. Remember to run the console as root to have enough rights to change settings. You can do this by using sudo /usr/bin/vmware &. Then enter the serial number under the menu “help” “enter serial number” and voila, the very same serial number that did not work under the perl installer now works fine in the GUI.
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