vmware cannot find kernel headers on arch linux

thorjelly · 08-31-2009, 07:59 AM

Wouldn't you know it? I set yesterday aside to get vmware working on my machine and the archlinux.org goes down for "maintenance" 10 minutes after I get started. And it's still down for maintenance. The frickin' thing had a wiki page specifically devoted to installing vmware! And forum topics related to my issue. Siiiiigh. Well, I am quickly losing patience since I would really like to set up vmware as quickly as possible, even though my issue is probably solved some where on archlinux.org.

Well, I'm running a completely updated Arch Linux. I have vmware workstation 6.5.2. It seemed to have installed fine, but when I run it it asks for the location of my kernel-headers so that it can compile some modules, and it can not find those kernel-headers. This isn't unexpected -- my experience with virtualbox is that it needs to compile modules to run as well, so why not? Anywho, it has a little box that asks me what location the headers are installed in, so I try a bunch of different paths and press 'install' at each one. None of them work. Specifically, I'm trying /lib/modules/2.6.30-ARCH/, /usr/src/linux-2.6.30-ARCH/, and various sub-directories therein (/lib/modules/2.6.30-ARCH/build, etc.) None of them work, of course.

I have the kernel headers installed:

Code:

[dunder@vertex ~]$ yaourt -Qi kernel-headers                                   
Name           : kernel-headers                                                
Version        : 2.6.30.5-1                                                    
URL            : http://www.gnu.org/software/libc                              
Licenses       : GPL                                                           
Groups         : base                                                          
Provides       : None                                                          
Depends On     : None                                                          
Optional Deps  : None                                                          
Required By    : glibc                                                         
Conflicts With : None                                                          
Replaces       : None                                                          
Installed Size : 3964.00 K                                                     
Packager       : Jan de Groot <jgc@archlinux.org>                              
Architecture   : x86_64                                                        
Build Date     : Sun 23 Aug 2009 09:58:46 AM EDT                               
Install Date   : Mon 24 Aug 2009 12:35:38 PM EDT                               
Install Reason : Explicitly installed                                          
Install Script : No                                                            
Description    : Kernel headers sanitized for use in userspace

And they are of the same version as my kernel:

Code:

[dunder@vertex ~]$ yaourt -Qi kernel26
Name           : kernel26             
Version        : 2.6.30.5-1           
URL            : http://www.kernel.org
Licenses       : GPL2                 
Groups         : base                 
Provides       : None
Depends On     : coreutils  kernel26-firmware>=2.6.30  module-init-tools
                 mkinitcpio>=0.5.20
Optional Deps  : crda: to set the correct wireless channels of your country
Required By    : nvidia
Conflicts With : None
Replaces       : kernel24  kernel24-scsi  kernel26-scsi  alsa-driver
                 ieee80211  hostap-driver26  pwc  nforce  squashfs  unionfs
                 ivtv  zd1211  kvm-modules  iwlwifi  rt2x00-cvs  gspcav1
                 atl2  wlan-ng26  aufs  rt2500
Installed Size : 133676.00 K
Packager       : Thomas Baechler <thomas@archlinux.org>
Architecture   : x86_64
Build Date     : Mon 17 Aug 2009 10:19:04 AM EDT
Install Date   : Thu 20 Aug 2009 08:58:13 PM EDT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : Yes
Description    : The Linux Kernel and modules

uname -r, by the way, is
2.6.30-ARCH

So what's wrong? Why can't I get vmware to compile its modules?

Thanks.

kbp · 08-31-2009, 08:14 AM

Hey thorjelly,

I dont know about arch linux but the package I usually need to install is kernel-devel ... HTH

cheers

thorjelly · 08-31-2009, 11:37 AM

There is no kernel-devel in arch; there are practically no dev or devel packages at all in Arch, because if I recall, development packages generally come standard in Arch and are included in the main packages. The kernel-headers package should contain what I need...

thorjelly · 08-31-2009, 08:13 PM

Of course, archlinux.org is back up and has the exact solution on its wiki.

Basically, just use 'sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all' instead of simply running vmware.

A patch was needed for it to compile in 2.6.30 too, but that's a different matter, and the details on that was on the wiki too.