UPDATE – Please note, the guys who maintain Pentoo have an ebuild available in their overlay – https://www.pentoo.ch/svn/portage/trunk/app-emulation/vmware-workstation/
As of writing this there isn’t an ebuild out for Workstation 7. There is also a compile issue with Workstation 6.x and 7′s vmnet module using a 2.6.32 kernel. I upgraded to 7 yesterday and unfortunately dropped VirtualBox. Don’t get me wrong, I love VBox and have never had any problems with it performance-wise or feature-wise but I use VMware Workstation or Fusion on all my other systems and at work. I continually found the need to transport vms around and things just didn’t work right when running and saving VMware vms in VBox and then running it back in VMware.
To install Workstation 7 I installed the following apps
dev-cpp/libgnomecanvasmm
dev-cpp/libsexymm
sys-apps/pciutils
sys-fs/fuse
sys-libs/glibc
x11-libs/libview
x11-libs/libgksu
x11-libs/libXcursor
x11-libs/libXft
x11-libs/libXi
x11-libs/libXinerama
x11-libs/libXrandr
dev-util/eclipse-sdk
gnome-base/gnome-desktop
gnome-base/gvfs
If you want to extract the bundle the following command will do it
The following creates the needed dir’s for vmware
ln -s init.d rc0.d
ln -s init.d rc1.d
ln -s init.d rc2.d
ln -s init.d rc3.d
ln -s init.d rc4.d
ln -s init.d rc5.d
ln -s init.d rc6.d
ln -s init.d rcS.d
Copy the vmware bundle file to /usr/src. For some reason telling it to install somewhere else seemed to fail for me.
Enter the defaults for pretty much everything except tell it the init scripts are located in /etc/init.d and then everything load.
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/239221 – has information on patching vmware for the 2.6.32 kernel. Haven’t tried it yet but seems simple enough.
#1 by Capt Wiggum at January 21st, 2010
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Thank you!!! This is exactly what I needed.
#2 by nick at January 23rd, 2010
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Glad it helped.
#3 by limux at January 24th, 2010
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cd /usr/src/linux
make old_config
make modules_prepare
#4 by Moriah at February 3rd, 2010
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Thanks! Got me up and running under gentoo with vmware 7.0.1
#5 by nick at February 4th, 2010
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Good deal. Please let me know if there were any steps I missed.
#6 by gentoo at February 18th, 2010
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Awesome!
That worked for me with Gentoo, kernel 2.6.31-r6, and VMware Workstation 7.0.1 as well.
#7 by derchiller at March 15th, 2010
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nice tutorial and works!
but one note:
pls next time write the needed packages in ONE ROW for nice copying the list to my loved emerge..
#8 by nick at March 15th, 2010
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Good point – thanks. I updated the post.
#9 by Alex at March 20th, 2010
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I’m having trouble setting the path to my kernel headers, any ideas?
#10 by nick at March 21st, 2010
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I am not sure. Have you recently upgraded gcc/glibc or have you tried re-emerging linux-headers? I think you can also go into your /usr/src/linux dir and type make headers_install.
#11 by derchiller at June 7th, 2010
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The patch does not tell u where to use it. My improved script should download the patch itselfs to the right directory and does not need to be started in the /usr/lib/vmware/modules directory. But its also not yet a robust script, as the coder before me said… (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/239221). If the patch allready exists the script should also work.
Compiling worked for me after using this patch!
Kernel 2.6.32-gentoo-r7
VMware-Workstation-Full-7.0.0-203739.x86_64.bundle
# patch-modules.sh – Script start
# Patch related to http://communities.vmware.com/thread/239221
cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules
cp -prn /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source-backup
mkdir original
cd original
find /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source -name “*.tar” -exec tar xf ‘{}’ \;
cd ..
cp -pr original/ patched/
wget -c http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/1401588-30687/vmware-7.0-2.6.32.patch
patch -p0 < vmware-7.0-2.6.32.patch
cd patched
tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
tar cf vmci.tar vmci-only
cp -p *.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
vmware-modconfig –console –install-all
# Script end
PS: The comment window could have more width. Hard to write more than the default text in it and review it then. (In style.css add to "input, textarea { width: 500px} maybe?). And u're free to correct my script if i have made a mistake.
#12 by nick at June 7th, 2010
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Awesome thanks man! The latest version of Workstation works with <2.6.35.rc1 but it failed for me on 2.6.35, have you tried the patch on 2.6.35-rc1?
Thanks for mentioning the comment field width, I never noticed how small it was before. I altered the css. Appreciate the tip.
#13 by derchiller at June 7th, 2010
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No, and i think i’ll stay as long as i can with my working version. And as i tried to tell everyone in my last post, i’m using the Kernel 2.6.32-gentoo-r7 kernel. As long as my portage says its the ‘good’ one, i’ll stay using it. But when i need to upgrade (and rebuild the vmware modules), i’ll be writing it here of my failure or success. greetz, dc
and omg, good job my friend. u’re listenting to the comments, think of it and change/improve things. i like u!
#14 by nick at June 8th, 2010
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Yes, please post back when and if you upgrade and thanks again for the help.
#15 by amnesia at June 11th, 2010
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just installed latest 7.1 release, works great. thanks for the tips!
#16 by nick at June 15th, 2010
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Glad it worked for you.
#17 by derchiller at June 15th, 2010
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I had some problems using vmnet (bridged and some other options).
I see this page as nice summary for problems with vmware 7 and gentoo, so here’s the solution:
/dev/vmnet{0-9} did not exist..
for i in {0..8}; do \
mknod /dev/vmnet${i} c 119 $i; \
chown 600 /dev/vmnet${i}; done
should create it. this worked for me, but u have to have vmware closed and restart (or start) the services ->
sudo /etc/init.d/vmware start
gl
ps: the author of this page is free to contact me with the give email adress
source: http://forum.soft32.com/linux/gentoo-vmware-vmnet-devices-ftopict323392.html
#18 by nick at June 15th, 2010
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FYI – I can’t seem to get a bridged connection working via wireless when running 2.6.34-vanilla. If I downgrade to 2.6.32-r7 it works fine.
#19 by ackit at August 18th, 2010
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i installed 7, thank you