HOWTO: VMware Player On Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) / 10.10 (Maverick) Running Kernel 2.6.35

Post date: 15-Sep-2010 17:54:35

NOTE: These instructions should work for any distribution running Linux 2.6.35 with slight modifications if any.

If you are running Linux kernel 2.6.35 on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) or 10.10 (Maverick) and you try to run VMware Player you are likely to run into a problem. VMware would install fine but when starting it would fail to compile its modules and it won't go any further no matter how many times it tries. Fortunately some clever guys from Arch Linux have figured out a way to fix it. These are the general steps to install VMware Player and apply the fix:

1. In case you don't have it already - download the appropriate VMware installer from here: http://www.vmware.com/download/player/
2. Open a terminal, change directory to the one containing the downloaded file and run the installer:
   1. gksudo bash VMware-Player-[SOME_VERSION_AND_ARCH].bundle
3. Install VMware using the GUI installer
4. Open a terminal and apply the fix:
   1. sudo -i
   2. cd /tmp
   3. wget http://www.sputnick-area.net/scripts/vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
   4. chmod +x vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
   5. ./vmware7.1.1-patch-kernel-2.6.35.bash
   6. vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
5. Now VMware should be ready to run. Find it in Applications > System Tools > VMware Player and give it a go.

A copy of the script is attached to this post in case the original disappears at some point.

All credits go to the Arch Linux gang for describing this method in their Wiki and Sputnik for writing the magic script.