yeah, ok. vmware workstation says i need the rc0 etc in folders. like debian etc have. but slackware DO NOT. any1 know how to fix this?

my second question is: where do i disable and enable modules from startup? and services from startup?

thanks

( i know about /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, but even if i disable something there- it still loads up )

nevermind vmware, i got the answers for that one.

any1 on the rest?

Which version of Slack are you running?

Cheers,
Tink

The correct way to install vmware (and enable modules) on slackware is like this:
BTW, this is just a copy paste from some site i don't remeber, didn(t wrote this myself, but i used that for installing it here)


Slackware Linux isn't officially *supported* by the folks at VMware - but it's not a big deal to get everything working... once you realize the only immediate bump in the road is with the install/setup scripts that come with VMware. I would also suggest 'forcing' the installation to compile the various VMware modules for your system.

In a nutshell... the VMware installation script assumes 'System V' style startup directories, scripts, etc... and Slackware just doesn't come setup that way since it has adopted something closer to a BSD scenario.

BTW - If you happen to be running a 2.4.x kernel - do yourself a favor and grab a copy of VMware 2.0.4. You shouldn't have problems installing/compiling modules w/VMware 2.0.3 with kernels through 2.4.3... but you'd need to edit some of the modules source to compile with a 2.4.4 kernel or later (just grab the latest VMware release and save yourself some trouble ;-)

The Suggested Solution - Preparation

Let's just assume we'll temporarily create the 'missing' System V setup in /etc

You might want to do the following:

cd /etc
mkdir init.d
for i in {0,1,2,3,4,5,6}; do mkdir rc$i.d; done

Since VMware will run suid root, you might want to limit program execution to a particular group of users (I created a 'vmware' group in /etc/group and added the desired users).

Running the installation

ok... let's assume you already downloaded the latest VMware .tar.gz archive and untarred & unzipped the distribution (creates a vmware-distrib directory wherever you did this).

(you need to be root to actually run the install)

cd vmware-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

If you didn't create the directories as mentioned above... the install should blow-up on you... and you'll need to go back and create the directories as mentioned.

When it asks you for the location of your startup scripts... and mentions rc0.d to rc6.d... you want to tell it /etc is the directory - since that's where we just created the temporary directories.

So... run through the prompts, answer the questions according to your preferences, etc... until you get to the part where it asks you if you want to run vmware-config.pl. DO NOT choose to run this now - you need to start the script manually with arguments. The setup should quit after you decline to run vmware-config.pl

I choose to install the binaries in /usr/local/bin - so we want to run vmware-config.pl from /usr/local/bin now. This might run OK if /usr/local/bin happens to be in your PATH setting, but I just 'cd' to /usr/local/bin in case it matters.

cd /usr/local/bin
./vmware-config.pl --compile

The extra --compile switch above forces vmware-config.pl to compile fresh modules for your system. If you forget the switch... it might appear that everything will work OK - modules are loaded without complaints, etc... but on *my* system, the pre-compiled modules segfault on startup and shutdown - and among other things... VMware isn't going to work.

(Just use the --compile switch to increase your chances for success)

Run through the remainder of the prompts, etc... until the script eventually finishes.

Back to Slackware reality

Once you are done running the install/config scripts - you probably want to make some minor changes to fit the Slackware/BSD scenario.

Copy the vmware script in /etc/init.d to /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware and make it executable.

cp /etc/init.d/vmware /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware

Add a few lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local to set up VMware when you boot the computer

(In /etc/rc.d/rc.local)

if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.vmware ]; then
/etc/rc.d/rc.vmware start
fi

Now... you can go back and get rid of the temporary /etc/init.d, /etc/rc[0-6].d fixes.

rm -rf /etc/init.d
for i in {0,1,2,3,4,5,6}; do rm -rf /etc/rc$i.d; done

Not to take anything away from de Niro's comprehensive answer, I thought I'd add a few comments.
While it is true that Slack's init is closer to BSD than SysV, Slack is capable of handling packages that install SysV-type init files in /etc/rc.d/init.d. (Check out /etc/rc.d/rc.sysvinit.) If you installed VMware correctly after making the /etc/rc.d/rc[0-6].d dirs, it should have installed symbolic links in dirs /etc/rc.d/rc3.d and /etc/rc.d/rc4.d. This simply means that the /etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware will automatically be run when Slack starts up in runlevel 3 or 4, provided that the vmware script is executable. The numerical prefix to the symbolic link is a priority level set for that "service", a feature that Red Hat and other SysV-style Linuxes adapted from a proprietary version of Unix, I forget which one.

enabling and disabling modules at startup:

specific modules that you want loaded at boot-time should be placed in command form in /etc/rd.d/rc.local

in this file, type
modprobe nameofmodule
modprobe anothermodule

and then those modules will be automatically loaded with dependencies already fixed

to stop a module from loading a boot-time, there are several ways, but normally i add the module to /etc/hotplug/blacklist

in this file, anywhere in the file, add the name of a module you don't want loaded

Holy Crap........that is a lot of work to get VM working in Slack.......

dang...........I was gonna do the same thing but I don't want to spend half of my evening getting it to work

Good day...

....see my post below...

It's not that hard :} and it took me about 10
minutes to install ... it all comes down to the
fact that vmware wants some sort of SysV
directory structure during install (or later
for modifications), and that you need to
call their script from your rc.local.


Cheers,
Tink

Hehe........I actually just did it myself.

It works kick butt

Funny thing is this:

I have Windows XP pro running in a VM on Slackware 9.1 which is running in a VM on a Windows XP Pro laptop.

Hahahahha. I did it just because I can

Freakin' deNiro hit it right on the head. We should sticky his instructions for "How to install VMware 4.0 on Slackware Linux"....or put it in Linux Answers

Peace,
Whitehat

Yeah, or (crazy idea here) people could use the search function to find this or any of the other threads that have already answered this question.

BTW here's the link to those instructions: http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jbyrne/vmware.htm

Enjoy!
--- Cerbere