Good evening all, I am trying establish how to correct an error I am receiving when installing VMware-workstation-5.5.3. This is not the common "how do I locate the c header files" one that pops up every few weeks or how to install GCC both of which are complete.

The basic of the problem is that when I run the install from the CLI I receive an error stating this

Now I am aware that The Kernel being used needs to match the devel files as well as the header files. Here is the output from the CLI to reflect I am running matching kernels.

As far as I can tell I am runnning all matching kernel files and do not understand how one file can "vary" from the others without the version numbers being different? It also mentions I can build my kernel from that folder? If this is a viable option could someone direct me to a location on where I can read up on some resources for such a task?

I realize this is not a VMware support forum and am not asking for help on how to run or maintain VMware itself. I am looking figure out if there is a way to establish if my kernels are different and if so how can I verify it and possibly revert back to a prev kernel or somehow force them to align with each other. Thanks folks. Please feel free to toss in any questions about info I may be missing. Cheers!

Dan

That does seem logical. You might have something else wrong that gets misinterpreted by the scripts in the makefile.

It is a viable option to try and get VMWare to compile.

One of the first things I did when I got FC6 was to download and build my "own" kernel to add certain things that I needed that were not in the "stock" FC6 kernel. Go to kernel.org and download the most current one you can find. The file you are looking for looks like this:

41861968 Oct 25 12:50 linux-2.6.18.1.tar.bz2

(or get a newer one / one with higher version numbers.)

Be sure to get a "stable" one, i. e. one without the letters "rc" in the name, from one of the "stable" directories. "Rc" kernels are release candidates and might not be 100% stable.

Once you have this file, unpack it in /usr/src/kernels on your FC6 installation. These are exactly the steps I used to get my "own" 2.6.18.1 kernel compiled and working on my FC6 install:

1. cd /usr/src/kernels
bunzip2 linux-2.6.18.1.tar.bz2
tar xvf linux-2.6.18.1.tar.bz2

2. Go into the directory and configure the kernel:

cd linux-2.6.18.1
make clean
make mrproper
make xconfig (if you are in the gui, otherwise run

make menuconfig

)

3. In the screen that appears, configure the kernel. This can be a bit tricky, mostly you should be ok if you leave things as they are. If you find, in the eventually resulting kernel, that some things are missing, you need to repeat this step and add them. Basically you need to decide what the kernel you are going to build will contain. If using make xconfig, you can tick an option (tickmark), make it a module (dot) or switch an option off (empty block).

4. Once you have configured the kernel to your satisfaction, save the configuration. This is done differently in menuconfig and xconfig, check the screen to see what to do. (Menuconfig is text based.)

5. Back in the terminal screen from where you started the config program, do the following:

make all
make modules_install
make install

This will compile and install the kernel. In FC6 this also fixes up GRUB automatically and makes the new kernel available for booting.

6. Once you have done the above, the new kernel is available for use. Reboot, and see if you see it in the GRUB list of available kernels to run. DO NOT RUN THE NEW KERNEL YET - just check that is IS, in fact, available to be booted.

7. Boot again into the stock FC6 kernel (the one with FC6 in the name).

(The following steps only 8-22 apply if you are using a vendor-provided Linux driver for your display card - if you are using a stock X Window driver, these steps don't apply - don't do them! If you do not know what I'm talking about here, skip the steps - you are most likely using a stock driver)

8. A problem with compiling your "own" kernel is that a kernel version can only work with its "own" kernel modules. In my case, I have a Nvidia based display card. This requires a kernel module to work correctly with my Linux. Thus, when I compiled my "own" kernel, this module stopped working and I could not get into my GUI.

9. If you are using a NVidia / ATI card that need a kernel module to work, you now need to get the source and compile a new kernel module against your new kernel. I'm going to cover the steps related to the NVidia driver. The current Linux NVidia driver can be downloaded from the NVidia website.

10. Once you have the driver, put it in your home directory.

11. Now we need to tell the system to boot in text mode (not gui mode) under the new kernel, so that, while running the new kernel, you can compile the graphics driver for your display card.

12. Open a terminal and edit /etc/inittab. Be careful! Screwing up here can badly stuff up your system.

13. In the /etc/inittab file, look for a line that says

id:5:Initdefault:

and change this line to

id:3:Initdefault:

MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE THE 5 TO A 3, NOT -ANYTHING- ELSE!

14. Now reboot your machine, and when the GRUB menu comes up, choose the new kernel you compiled yourself.

15. Hopefully it will boot, but instead of getting your graphical login screen, you'll get a text prompt. Login with your root password.

16. Go to the place where you put the Nvidia driver. Execute it:

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9631-pkg1.run

17. Follow the prompts that appear, and when the installer asks if it can try and download a kernel interface for your running kernel, say no. When it asks if it can try and compile its own interface, say yes.

18. Hopefully, the driver will now compile by itself. It may ask if it is OK to remove the old driver, say yes. If this does not appear don't worry, it then means you are compiling the driver for the first time.

19. Once the process completes, and you have your terminal prompt back, type

startx

to see if the new driver works. You should now get to a desktop that looks exactly like your "normal" desktop once you have logged in.

20. If you are satisfied the driver works, exit X Windows back to the text terminal.

21. Again edit /etc/inittab and set the 3 in the initdefault line back to 5, in order to get the system to start in graphical mode again.

22. Save the inittab file, reboot, and choose to run your "new" kernel.

NOTE - the "old" kernel is still there and available for use if you have some kind of drastic problem with the new one - simply select it when you boot in GRUB to use it. Note though that your display might not work, since / if you have a kernel-specific driver module. In that case, reverse the procedure above - boot the "new" kernel, reset the runlevel to 3, recompile the driver against the "old" kernel, then set the runlevel back to 5 and reboot.

Also note that the above steps in a similar fashion will need to be done for every "custom" kernel module you use. For example, at a certain stage I had a custom network card driver that I had to compile myself. Each time I compiled a new kernel, I also had to recompile this driver "against" that new kernel to get it work in the "new" kernel.

Once you have done the above, you should be able to try to compile VMWare against the "new" kernel and the "new" kernel's source and header files. Note that you might need to specify the explicit location of the kernel header files to be 100% sure VMWare's ./configure is finding the "right" kernel headers. Try ./configure --help in the VMWare source directory to find out how to specify this. Usually it is something like

./configure --with-kernel-headers=/usr/src/kernels/linux-2.6.18.1

Well, the above should be a precis version of one possible solution to the apparent kernel / kernel source mismatch you are experiencing - by going to a completely different / self-compiled kernel, you should solve the mismatch problem you have...

Try - right after getting error - running 'insmod /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon.ko' . What happens?
Seems that VmWare thinks in 2.4 terms about how kernel module can be called.

Thank you for the detailed reply Raskin, I appreciate all the help you have given me as it seems you tend to reply fairly often to my questions. I am excited about your reply because I was looking to learn alittle more about compiling my own kernel instead of using the stock ones that come with the distrobutions. I look forward to giving it a try this evening when I finish work. It should definetly be interesting to work out.

Do you know of any websites with additional information about what is happening when I compile a new kernel? You mentioned that I will have to "compile" my nvidia drivers to work with the new kernel which makes logical sense. But how can I identify what other applications are going to need to be recompiled? Like for example having xine installed and running will I have to reinstall it to work properly under my new kernel? If this is the case is it safe to say that once your install your linux distro from scratch you should not modify or bother updating anything since you will have to do it all over again with a new kernel?

I know these are fairly newbish questions but I find myself still struggling to understand how linux fits everything together. I am still stuck under a windows mindset in structure and program management and am looking to break that mindset. So I apologize if my questions seem alittle silly.

Thank you again Raskin. I will post an update once I finish the Kernel update! Cheers!

Dan

Er.. You misunderstood something... rylan76 posted detailed guide on building kernel... Nice post, really. I just made some brief suggestion, that - as I see now - is probably not true.

Oops You are 100% correct I misread who posted that reply. My Apologies rylan76, Thank you for the extremely detailed post and taking the time to collect all that information. As I mentioned I do appreciate it. But none the less thank you Raskin you have also been helpful in the past.

If you do have some resources I would be able to look over as I mentioned earlier let me know. Thanks again all.

Alright, I seem to be running into some troubles trying to compile the new Kernel. I downloaded "linux-2.6.19.1". I moved it to the directly you specified "/usr/src/kernels/linux-2.6.19.1". I started by running the 3 commands you listed.

however when I ran xconfig I got an error something about missing QT. From there I assumed that I was missing a dependency and after checking I located and installed QT and QT-Devel (error stated I needed the development part).

I am now receiving this error but am alittle lost on where to proceed from here.

I tryed to see if there was a "g++" dependency but was not successful nor did I think I would be since it had /bin/sh I assume this is supposed to be a command that is apart of the system yet mine is missing.

Any suggestions?

(Updated: Full listing of results when running the 3 commands in succession of each other)

Hmm - I got my howto for redoing my kernel from http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/ initially. Excellent guides and howtos in there.

No this is not neccessary. 99% percent of the time you'll be able to use your old binaries as-is with the new kernel. Only kernel -modules- need to be recompiled for a new kernel. This usually means third-party drivers. For example, besides the Nvidia driver, I used for a short time another driver for my Gigabit Ethernet chip (the Realtek 8168B). Getting this to work involved compiling a third-party driver from Realtek, and this driver had to be recompiled (along with the Nvidia driver) each time I recompiled the kernel. But it was a kernel-specific file - your normal binaries need not be recompiled for each new kernel version you run.

Nope, that's not applicable - and this is the beauty of it - generally you should be able to run all your programs (even ones compiled under older versions of the same kernel) without any modifications. Note that I say generally, since, for example, if the binary format handled by the Linux kernel changes, obviously old binaries won't work. But I'm betting there would be clear warning about any such event, and it is unlikely that something like that will be enabled by default in a stable kernel. (Another reason not to get "RC" kernels, if you are not a kernel hacker yourself)

I. e. you can fool around as much as you like with your kernel, all your binaries should still run as is, without having to be recompiled. (I doubt custom kernel compiles would be so common if it HAD been neccessary to recompile each and every binary each time the kernel is recompiled - yikes! Thousands of the things...)

Not at all. How is anybody supposed to figure stuff out if nobody answers questions...? The BIG difference (IMO) between the Linux world and the Windows world. Windows: Shut up and use it, your don't need to understand. Linux: Wanna know how it works? This is how it works... this is how you can change it to suit you and your way of working... this is how you can add stuff... this is how you can make it do this... and that... much better!

Ok, this is possible if you did not install the "X-Windows development" package in Anaconda when installing FC6.

What is the output of

rpm -qa | grep qt

?

You should see something like:

[rylan@StefanLinux kernel]$ rpm -qa | grep qt
qt-3.3.6-13
qt-devel-3.3.6-13
qt-designer-3.3.6-13
avahi-qt3-0.6.11-6.fc6
[rylan@StefanLinux kernel]$

Ok, nice.

You are probably missing the C++ development packages as well. g++ is the C++ compiler.

What does

rpm -qa | grep gcc

report?

Mine reports this, and I can compile kernels (and xconfig) just fine:

[rylan@StefanLinux kernel]$ rpm -qa | grep gcc
gcc-4.1.1-30
gcc-c++-4.1.1-30
gcc-objc-4.1.1-30
libgcc-4.1.1-30
gcc-gfortran-4.1.1-30
compat-gcc-34-3.4.6-4
compat-libgcc-296-2.96-138
compat-gcc-34-c++-3.4.6-4

If you are missing some of these, locate them on your distro discs / disc and rpm -ivh them - then try to start the kernel compile again.

Well, technically note about RC kernels is not entirely correct. They are to releases as releases are to stable releases (like 2.6.19.1) - simply more bugs. Every big global change that occurs in -rc1 is planned to be in final release. -mm kernels are a different story. They include a lot of features that will or will not go into mainline - 10 patchlevels later (patchlevel is third number, like 19 in 2.6.19).

About make xconfig: looks like system lacks C++ compiler. It may help to install gcc-g++ if it is separate package. Or try gconfig.

Ok - live and learn! My mistake.

Alright I wanted to give you an update as to where I was with the kernel compiling. I installed all the dependacies I was missing that you listed and was able to execute all the commands properly. However when I tryed to boot into the kernel in run level 3 after editing my /etc/inittab I would have a kernel panic as it was giving me errors about not being able to mount /root/ /dev/ so on so forth as it was accessing volume00. Then when I edited my run level back to 5 and was toying around with another app I started getting some sevre crashing (Good chance I was playing with stuff I should not have). So since I did not really have anything customized I went ahead and re-formatted to start fresh.

At this point Ironically I was able to install and run vmware after running my all my updates in Fedora. I do plan on still upgrading to the new kernel as it is something I would enjoy learning to do and will add to this post with the results once I complete it by this weekend. But I thought I would give you an update.

On a side note the purpose of VMware was to get XP running in VMware and install Itunes and access it with my ipod. Which by the way was successful, I am able to connect and sync / play all my music I had in Itunes onto my ipod with no troubles and I did not have to config or change anything other then install Itunes itself. Talk about freaking awesome! Linux has come a long way!


UPDATE 01/12/2007:

I followed the steps you provided above Rylan76, however when I boot into init 3 and select the new kernel to follow the steps to compile my nvidia driver I receive errors stating that I am nto able to mount / followed by many other drives such as /dev/ and so forth. I think there is a step I am missing.