Why won't VMWare Player run on Fedora 8

racoco · 02-22-2008, 02:30 PM

Let me add one more piece to this puzzle in case others hit it.

I also had great difficulty getting VMWare Server to install on my Fedora Core 8 PC. This was true even after doing:

yum install kernel-devel

The kernel-devel pacakge (downloaded to /usr/share/kernels) that came to me by default was for i686 kernel. This all seemed proper since "uname -a"(for me) yielded:

Linux Looney.racoco.net 2.6.23.15-137.fc8 #1 SMP Sun Feb 10 16:35:26 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

However...when using the vmware-any-any-update116 utility (needed to fix issues with fc8), the compiled vmmon.o module would *still* not load.

What i had to do to fix this mess was to UNINSTALL kernel-devel and re-install an i586 version of it:

yum remove kernel-devel
yum install kernel-devel.i586

Only then did the vmware installation successfully load the vmmon kernel module!

I am amazed i got this to work since NOWHERE did any linux utility clue me in that "i586" had anything to do with any of my kernel-related configurations.

I would love to hear how one might have figured this out rather than by painful rial and error. if uname -a does not mention i586 anywhere, how should i have know to get the proper kernel-devel package? please inform me if you know.

tx,

- rich

alexmihaj · 03-10-2008, 11:00 PM

I tried to install VMware Player on my Fedora 8 system following the getting started guide of the documentation.
When running vmware-config.pl it's the same story with no suitable vmmon module.

Trying to compile yields the following output:

Code:

Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.

Building the vmmon module.

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.24.3-12.fc8/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.24.3-12.fc8-i686'
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/vmware.h:25,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:83:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/vm_basic_types.h:170: fel: motstridiga typer på "uintptr_t"
include/linux/types.h:40: fel: tidigare deklaration av "uintptr_t" var här
I fil inkluderad från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/x86.h:23,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:15,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:84:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/x86cpuid.h:383:1: varning: "BIT_MASK" omdefinierad
I fil inkluderad från include/linux/kernel.h:15,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:11:
include/linux/bitops.h:7:1: varning: detta är platsen för den tidigare definitionen
I fil inkluderad från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/vmci_kernel_defs.h:26,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./common/vmciContext.h:19,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:21,
                 från /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:84:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:37:5: varning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" är inte definierad
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:43:5: varning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" är inte definierad
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/vmci_kernel_defs.h:26,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./common/vmciContext.h:19,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:21,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:84:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:60: fel: motstridiga typer på "poll_initwait"
include/linux/poll.h:65: fel: tidigare deklaration av "poll_initwait" var här
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:198: varning: initiering från inkompatibel pekartyp
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Fel 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only] Fel 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.24.3-12.fc8-i686'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Fel 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.

For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please 
visit our Web site at "<my first post so I cannot post links>" and
"<my first post so I cannot post links>".

Execution aborted.

Some other info:
$ rpm -qa --qf="%{n}-%{v}-%{r}.%{arch}\n" 'gcc*' 'kernel*' | sort
gcc-4.1.2-33.i386
gcc-c++-4.1.2-33.i386
gcc-gfortran-4.1.2-33.i386
kernel-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.i686
kernel-2.6.24.3-12.fc8.i686
kernel-devel-2.6.24.3-12.fc8.i686
kernel-headers-2.6.24.3-12.fc8.i386

$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.24.3-12.fc8 #1 SMP Tue Feb 26 14:58:29 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

All help will be much appreciated.

PS. Sorry for the swedish error messages.