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.
great job
Thanks for your comment. Glad it worked for you
Nice work mate… well done!
Thanks for that – and for taking the time to comment
nice work. thanks, pal
You’re welcome. Thanks for the comment
Awesome fix! Solved my problem. Thanks!
You’re welcome. I appreciate the comment
Thanks a lot. Just a copy and paste. Works great on ubuntu 10.10 64-Bit.
Thank you very much!
Thank you for that, it works like a charm for me.
@Horst @Wouter Simons Thanks for your kind comments. Glad everything works for you now
Hi Matt,
I just finished running your script and it worked as described. I wasn’t having exactly the same problems as above, but every time I started VM Player it ran through the same “recompiling” list and failed on something at the end (which zoomed by too fast to note).
The result is that I now have network services again, which is absolutely great. Thanks for taking the time to share this. I’ve sent you €2 to buy a beer or coffee as a small token of my thanks!
Regards,
Dave
Thanks that’s very kind of you
glad everything works ok for you now. A drop of Guinness always goes down well, thanks again.
Oops, I did not work for me
isc-scn@niesen:/tmp$ sudo vmware-modconfig –console –install-all
Stopping VMware services:
VMware USB Arbitrator done
VM communication interface socket family done
Virtual machine communication interface done
Virtual machine monitor done
Blocking file system done
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only’
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35-22-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
MODULEBUILDDIR= modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-22-generic’
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/driverLog.o
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.o
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c: In function ‘HostIFReadUptimeWork’:
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:2004: warning: ‘newUpBase’ may be used uninitialized in this function
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.o
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c: In function ‘IOMMU_SetupMMU’:
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c:156: error: implicit declaration of function ‘iommu_map_range’
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c: In function ‘IOMMU_VMCleanup’:
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c:403: error: implicit declaration of function ‘iommu_unmap_range’
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-22-generic’
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmmon-only’
Unable to install vmmon
isc-scn@niesen:/tmp$
Ok. This way it works:
1. Remove an existing vmware-player. This step did not remove the existing VM’s
isc-scn@niesen:/tmp$ sudo vmware-installer -l
Product Name Product Version
====================== ====================
vmware-player 3.1.2.301548
isc-scn@niesen:/tmp$ sudo vmware-installer -u vmware-player
isc-scn@niesen:/tmp$
2. Download the vmware-player from http://www.vmware.com again. In my case it was
VMware Player for 64-bit Linux
09/23/10 | 3.1.2 | 99M | Binary (.bundle)
3. Follow the steps given in this blog and everything is fine.
Thanks a lot!
Hi.
When i do this, (sudo ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash)
at the end I get the output: “Unable to install vmmon”
What’s up with that?
i ment “sudo ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash”
Thank you very much. All is’t right!!!
awesome!
thank you
It works! thanks for your contribution!
@Stefan Thanks for your comment and the extra suggestion. That is a good idea.
@User @frx @Jarley Thanks for your comments, glad it works for you.
@Kim Have you tried @Stefan’s suggestion above.
Great! worked for me too! thankyou!
You’re very welcome. Thanks for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.
Thanks for this! Worked like a champ.
Thank you very much for your contribution!
You’re welcome, thanks for your comment too
Thanks, it worked!
@gaglegemaate You’re welcome. Thank you for taking the time to comment
Thanks a lot Matt! It certainly worked! I`m new to linux and started with ubuntu. Perhaps that`s why my comentary (out of ignorance) may be forgiven! Is the patch safe? Coul it by any mean be a threat to the conputer? Cause inestability to the system, etc? Thanks a lot for your patience!
@Danny Sarcos You’re welcome and don’t worry – you’re asking the right questions. It’s always good to know exactly *what* you’re running on your computer. The patch is essentially a bunch of text files that adjust VMware’s source code. Because virtualisation works at such a low level in the computer, it has to be compiled specifically for your kernel. What the patch does is make it so that VMware will compile correctly to work with your kernel. It’s quite a frequent occurence that these community-supplied fixes are out before VMware’s. As for the patch itself, well…just from my stats here, I can see that this post has been viewed over 4,500 times in the last week, and I haven’t had any reports of problems or system instability.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
With the Matt steps, my VM is working here! Thanks!
Great stuff! Thanks for your comment
That worked …!
Did’t work for me: line 189: patch: command not found
Ok, got it working. I still learn every day.
Thanks for the patch
You’re welcome. Glad it’s working for you now, thanks for the comment.
Had an issue where it gave me an error on the first go around. at the end I was getting the output: “Unable to install vmmon” I removed vmware and reinstalled first. Then followed the instructions as posted and im now up and running. Thanks!
Valeu Pela Dica!!
Aqui também aparecia o erro quando executava o VMware. Após seguir os passos da recoinfiguração do Kernel tudo funcionou!!
Obrigado!!
Viva o Ubuntu!!
Enoque Joseneas – Petrolina-Pe – Brazil.
Thanks a lot for this howto. It worked perfect.
@Douglas Brown @zeutan You’re welcome. Glad it’s working for you now
Thanks for your comments.
@Enoque de nada
How did you fix the error on Line 189? I keep getting that error when I run the script, and then I keep getting the “VMWare Player needs to compile…” message. The VMCI fails to compile. Up until running the patch, my virtual machine seemed to work alright (I haven’t tried it since running the script though).
Have a great day:)
Patrick.
I’m on 10.10 Kernel 2.6.35-22-generic GNOME 2.32.0 (32-bit OS).
Grazie. Ben fatto!
Hi There,
I would like to give you many thanks for the awesome tip.
You have saved my life.
Kind regards.
Brendan.
You’re very welcome. Thanks for the kind comment
Hi There,
@Patrick Dickey I got the same error running the bash file.
line 189: patch: command not found
After that i installed the package patch
Sorry the comment before is not complete.
try,
sudo apt-get install patch
and remove the lock file type. After that the bash files works very well.
Kind regards
Stefan
This worked for me. Odd that it happened in the first place.
Fantastic and well written, thanks amigo!
@Adidasguy13187 You’re welcome. Thanks for the comment