Installing VMware 5.5

From SUSE Wiki

Type: Howto

Tested Versions: 10.x

Written By: http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=User:E%40zyVG

Further Modifications By: Kamatsu

VMware Workstation is powerful desktop virtualization software for software developers, software testers, and enterprise IT professionals. Workstation allows users to run multiple x86-based operating systems, including Windows, Linux, NetWare, and Solaris x86, and their applications simultaneously on a single PC in fully networked, portable virtual machines — no rebooting or hard drive partitioning required.

As of writing this, I am running VMware 5.5 Beta on my SUSE 10.0 with KDE 3.4.3 (this article is also available on my blog at http://linux.wordpress.com/2005/10/18/vmware-workstation-55-beta-on-my-suse-box/)

Note: You need the following packages from YaST installed:

• kernel-source
• gcc
• gcc-c++
• make

All these are available on the CD/DVD that you used to install your SUSE from.

Before installing VMWare, make sure your kernel is up to date: do an online update to make sure, then reboot if it changed. This is because you often have to repeat these steps with every kernel update -getting any waiting kernel patch out the way will save one wasted iteration.

Installation

Change to root and then install the downloaded RPM:

$ su
Password: <enter password>
# rpm -ivh VMware-workstation-5.5.0-16958.i386.rpm

Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:VMwareWorkstation ###################################### [100%]

Done. Now we will follow few extra steps, just to make sure that all is good (it might not be necessary)

I then run these commands to make kernel source files usable so vmware-config.pl can compile the kernel modules.

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make mrproper
# make cloneconfig
# make modules_prepare

Configuring VMware

Now we run the following command to configure the VMware.

# vmware-config.pl

During the configuration accept all of the defaults to the questions that are asked, meaning type paths that are listed, “yes” wherever there was [yes] as default option, and “no” where it was [no]. When doing network configuration install, you will need to use “Shift:” -then- “q” to exit the editor mode, as well in the beginning to quit the license agreement.

Once completed you will get something similar to:

The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.

Starting VMware services:
Virtual machine monitor done
Virtual ethernet done
Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0 done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background) done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background) done
NAT service on /dev/vmnet8 done

The configuration of VMware Workstation 5.5.0 build-16958 for Linux for this
running kernel completed successfully.

You can now run VMware Workstation by invoking the following command:
“/usr/bin/vmware”.

Enjoy,
–the VMware team

That’s it. Now you will find VMware icon in your KDE/Gnome menu, or you can run it via CLI, as user, not root. Don’t forget to install the vmware-tools for your guest OS.

Advanced Configuration

Once running VMWare offers some configuration options, like tuning the amount of memory allocated to VMs. By default it grabs lots of physical memory; unless you are going to run lots of VM images side-by-side, this is too much. You can change the memory allocation in the GUI, but you cannot save the settings unless you have write access to the relevant directory. You will know if you don't, as you will get an error message about not being able to get a lock "Unable to save changes to settings: Failed to obtain a write lock on the file /etc/vmware/config."

As root, go to that directory and make the contents world writeable as shown:

$ su
Password:<Enter Root Password>
# cd /etc/vmware/
# chmod o+w . *

Then, try to save the settings again, then, make the directory secure by typing:

# chmod o-w . *