VMware Player on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
UPDATE: According to one commenter below, this workaround also solves the problem on Fedora 14. Happy days 
Getting with the excitement of 10/10/10, I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat over the weekend. My trusty Dell Studio 1735 seems to be very Ubuntu-friendly, as each upgrade goes without a hitch.
I like the new 10.x layout and, although this update seems to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, boot time has decreased again and the new font is nice. The only issues are to to with software that worked before the upgrade, but now doesn’t work afterwards. VMware Player is one of those.
Launching VMware Player after the upgrade gives a helpful message to tell you that kernel support needs to be recompiled. Clicking OK produces a little charade – fooling you into thinking that everything is going smoothly. Eventually, however, the process will stop with a message, which reads: “Unable to build kernel module – See log file…”
This can be corrected by opening a terminal window and typing:
cd /tmp wget http://www.sputnick-area.net/scripts/vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash chmod +x ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash sudo ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
After the patch has run, type:
sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Which should terminate with “Starting VMware services” and inform you that they were started successfully. Now it’s just a case of launching VMware Player again.
If you do what I did and accept the link to upgrade VMware Player when it starts, then you’ll probably have to run the process again. Before doing this, though, you’ll have to remove a lock file. Otherwise the patch will “think” it’s already been applied. To remove the lock file type:
sudo rm /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/.sputpatch
Now you can re-run the patch and the updated VMware Player will work.
perfect !! it worked in ubuntu 10.10 64 bit, thanks
Thanks, that also helps on Fedora 14.
Thx, it worked like a charm on the upgraded Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit on Dell Inspiron 1501, thx :*
You’re welcome – glad it worked for you
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Thx a lot, it worked perfect on ubuntu 10.10 x64
Ja ne!!
Thanks a lot! worked perfectly on kubuntu 10.10 64 bit
still much prefer vmware player over vmware server…
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah
thank you very much for the solution.
Ubuntu 10.10 x64
I’ll try the fix for the vmware workstation too, which had the same problem.
Thanks for your medicine, applied it and VMWarePlayer is now running fine.
Greetings from a Linux Newbie
@Einishi @friesoft Thanks for your comments. Glad VMWare is working ok now.
@mauro Thanks for your comment too. I’m glad it worked – and would be interested to know if it works with VMWare Workstation as well.
@MyLinuxMint You’re very welcome, happy to help
Does anyone know if this patch will work on Ubuntu 10.10 32bit as well?
Thanks for making this patch!
After using the path I can compile all modules ok. But when I start vmware player nothing happens. If I do it from console I can see a message that explains the module versions and then nothing. Any ideas what is happening?. I’m using Ubuntu 10.10 32 Bits and Vmplayer 7.1.2 build 301548.
Thanks in advance.
It worked perfectly, but I’m unable to install VMWareTools. They start downloading, then ask for the administrator password, and fails. Do you know a way that I can use to get those installed? I’m using Ubuntu 10.10×64 as host (need to install vmtools for ubuntu 10.04 guest) Thanks for the info.
Great! It worked perfectly for my ubuntu 10.10.
Thanks a lot!
thanks, mate!
You’re welcome…thanks for the comment
Thanks so much. This was immensely helpful!
Thanks so much. it worked perfectly,
Thanks again.
tnx. Works on ubuntu 10.10 64bit with VMware Workstation 7.1.2 build-301548
not work for me
,
when i execute “sudo vmware-modconfig –console –install-all”
i got the message “gcc and kernel headers must be installed”
Im not linux expert :S, but i need to use vmware, help me please
Thank You! Really helpful!
@MastroDiCarte Thanks for the comment, glad it worked!
@steve Please try running the following command:
sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` linux-source-`uname -r` gccNote that ` is the backquote, which is often located next to the 1 key – it is not an apostrophe ‘