upgrading kernel
 

hi i am really new to linux. I want to upgrade my Fedora core 5 kernel. Is this command right:

" yum install kernel-devel".

Actually i am having trouble installing vmware tools on my guest Fedora 5. It keeps asking me for the directory that has C header files that macth the kernel source.
Which i cant find.

After upgrading kernel i want to get the matching kernel source also. Is my approach right. If yes please tell me how to upgrade kernel and how to install the kernel source.

Thank you
Sharif vohra

Here's what you need:

yum -y update kernel kernel-devel

The 'kernel' package has the binary kernel files, and the 'kernel-devel' has the headers needed to build the VMWare module (or any kernel module). You only need the kernel source if you want to customize the kernel itself or apply a patch.

Thank you for your reply. I will just try it. Becuase for now i did
"yum kernel-devel" which showed me 2.6.16.xxx but my uname - says 2.6.15.xxx (no idea y.
but as you said they are different. so my kernel is still 2.6.15 but kernel-devel is 2.6.16. (rite?)
i think i will upgrade using the command u gave me.
Thank you.

Yum is simply reporting the current level. In other words, what you have installed is older and will be upgraded if you ask yum to do that.

yes i upgraded my kernel and kernel devel. But i still cant confiure vmare tools. I think i am gonna give on this. It still keeps asking for the C header files. By defualt it looks in /usr/bin/linux. I also made it look in /lib/...nuild/include (than there is a linux subdirectory holding the .h files. Still no luck.
it says something abt vmhgfs module first before asking for C header files.

The headers should be in the directory '/usr/src/kernels/2.6.16-1.2111_FC5/' for the current FC5 kernel. You can see this by issuing the command:

rpm -ql kernel-devel | head -n1

Also, have you applied the current vmware-any-any-update patch to VMWare?

well. i installed fedora again (Fresh install).
The patch says i have to type in terminal( ./runme) but i get an error " Unable to open the installer database /etc/vmware/locations in read-mode.

Execution aborted.

I was in root mode when i did it. Also i have perl installed.

One more thing when i go to add/remove software. i get the error "unable to retrieve software information". Actually this time i installed so many extra packages also" Last time i didnt have many packages and add/remove program just ran fine. So i dont know if its a bug.

I ran the script ./runme before and after installing the vmware tools but before configuring the tools ofcourse.

Still I tried to configure the vmware tools. It asked for the C Header files. I used your command to find the path and just had to append "/include" at the end of the path. Thats because it looks for a linux sub directory which is in the include folder.

But i get this error now:
The kernel defined by this directory of header files does not have the same
address space size as your running kernel.
And asks for the header files again.

I am using vmware 5.5. On one forum there was a post that said we dont need vmware any any update if we have vmware workstation 5.5.

ops. The ./runme update of vmware gives the error about "Unable to open the installer database /etc/vmware/locations in read-mode" But i dont see any vmware folder in etc directory.

Did you install VMware before running the patch (required)?

yes i got it working. thank you so much. Actually i m have to work on debian but th dvds are taking too long to download. In the mean time i m working onfedora and mandriva 2006.
we have yum in fedora linux. Is urpmi the same thing in mandriva. Becuase i want tp upfate the kernel , kernel-headers and kernel source in manriva. Sorry for asking too many basic questions.

The documentation for urpmi is here. It performs essentially the same function as yum, however I think yum is much more user friendly.

Hi again. Thanx for previous help. I have finally got debian running. I have same problem of c header files. i think i have the matching kernel header files but vmware doesnt seem to accept it.
I was wondering if i could install the latest kernel and headers for it. I used Yum and urpmi for redhat and mandrake. how do i do it in debian(apt -get install) reads cd rom rite or may be we can make it look for packages on some mirrors.
i think i can add some mirrors to source.list file.for e.g
deb http://ftp.at.debian.org/debian/dist...n/binary-i386/
or just
deb http://ftp.at.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/
(not sure which of the 2 to use.
i checked my kernel version and did apt-get install kernel-headers-2.4.xx-x. which made a directory /usr/src/kernel-2.4.xx-x/include.
But i still cant run vmware tools.
Could you help me with this please.

What happens when you run vmware-config.pl?

well it just tries to configure vmgfs and than asks for c header files. When i enter the kernel header files path, it says that it may compile but wont run in the running kernel (something like tht). and than asks for c header files again.