Installing VMware player 3.1.3 (or Workstation 7.1.3) on OpenSuSE 11.4 with 2.6.38 kernel

In my previous blog I showed how to install the latest kernel (2.6.38-1) on OpenSuSE 11.4 and that it works very well.


Now, installing VMware products on linux is not so easy as it used to be because you need to patch some files before you can build the necessary kernel modules.


This is a quick howto to install the VMware player 3.1.3 but it should also work with Workstation 7.1.3

• Download VMware-Player-3.1.3-324285.x86_64.bundle from the VMware website and put it in you /tmp folder
• Install the following extra packages using YaST: kernel-source, kernel-syms, make,patch  and gcc
• Download the following patches (I found them on the VMware community forums) and put them in your /tmp folder
• vmware-7.1.3-2.6.37-9-generic.patch
• patch-modules_v62.sh
• Go to a terminal with root privileges and type the following commands
• cd /usr/src/linux
• make mrproper
• make cloneconfig
• make modules_prepare
• Run the bundle installer (go to a terminal and type "sh /tmp/VMware-Player-3.1.3-324285.x86_64.bundle") and go through the wizard. The automatic compilation will fail.
• open a root terminal and run "sh /tmp/patch-modules_v62.sh"
• This will
• patch files
• start compilation
• finish the VMware installation

You should now be able to start VMware Player from your Application Menu

P.S. When you are using the XFCE desktop you also need to enable the HAL daemon service before VMware Player will start. Just enable it through YaST.