When installing VMware, I get the following error.

None of the pre-built vmmon modules for VMware Server is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]


There actually is no such suggested directory.

Any ideas on where I can find these C header files? When I try to search for the kernel folder I get a gazillion entries and have no idea what to check.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You need to:
Make sure that you are running the latest kernel as well, or your headers and running kernel will mismatch.

Well this sucks, this is the error that im getting now:

The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match
your running kernel (version 2.6.40.6-0.fc15.i686). Even if the module were to
compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

That's what I was referring to earlier. Your running kernel and the version of the headers don't match. The easiest way to fix this is to:
Then reboot to use the new kernel. If nothing gets updated, then you already have the new kernel; you just have to reboot to use it.

Thanks for your reply. Ok so I did that, and did a reboot, but still no change.

Its possible that the software that im installing is too old for the kernel too. It's VMware server 2

Have you applied the VMware Server 2 patches?

Also, are you sure that qemu-kvm or Virtual Machine Manager, which is part of Fedora, doesn't meet your needs?

No I havent tried applying the patches yet, but I will look into it.

I guess a question that I can pose to people is, what flavours/versions of Linux have they successfully used with VMWare software. I'm trying to get experience with VMWare basically.

I've used the free VMWare Server with F15. I found it didn't provide any additional functionality over qemu-kvm for my use, and I got tired of constantly patching it to keep it working with new kernels. There's a nice GUI for qemu-kvm with Virtual Manager, but the command line is so simple I don't even bother with it. Qemu also provides more functionality than VMWare, since it can run different architectures. Since I recently started working with ARM systems, this has been very useful for running Debian-ARM virtually.

While VirtualBox provides additional functionality (virtual 3D display graphics), I found it unstable, and it once crashed my system. The kernel developers have recently flagged it as 'crap' so I can't recommend it.

Yeah I've noticed virtual box has issues too.

As far as I know from my research now, VMWare stopped support for the VMWare server series and are focused now on ESX. Since I just downloaded F15, I should have the latest kernel, which could be the issue if they havent updated the server software in a while.

The VMWare server is always behind the kernel releases. The only way to get it to run is to apply the community patches. I prefer to keep current (or even a little ahead) on my kernels, so VMWare was always broken on every boot. The cycle was re-run the setup, it fails, Google for a patch for the kernel version, apply the patch re-run the setup. Sometime it required hunting down multiple patches, and sometimes a patch would take weeks to become available (meaning no virtual machines in the interim). It got old very fast.

VMWare is fine if you are running a stable data center environment where updates are planned, tested, and applied quarterly. But a desktop is more volatile. Qemu was the only virtualization software that was always up to date.

Yeah im thinking tha VMWare on a Linux desktop might not be the greatest thing. I'm giving Virtual Machine Manager a shot now.

I tried the same that is installing VMware-server 2 on Ubuntu and it never worked ;-) I got the same error which you mentioned in your second post. Finally I switched to Virtual Box. :-)

@T3RM1NVT0R:

"Linux kernel developers have marked Oracle's VirtualBox Linux kernel driver as "tainted crap" due to the overwhelming number of problems this module has caused."

Be careful running that. It apparently causes multiple problems, including storage overlays which can cause data corruption.

1 members found this post helpful.

@ macemoneta

Thanks a lot.

After you posted. I searched for that text on google and it came up with the following link: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=OTk5Mw