Installing VMware Server in Hardy Heron

Damien 29th Apr 2008 Linux 30 Comments

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron was officially released on 24th Apr last week. I specially took the weekend to download the iso and upgrade my Gutsy. What I thought would be a smooth process turns out to be a rather messy affair, with Hardy breaks some of my favorite software. One of them is VMware server.

Luckily with some help from the community, I finally got it working.

If you are facing the same issue, then here is the full guide to install VMware Server (works for VMware Workstation 6.5 beta too) and get it working in Hardy Heron:

Download VMware Server 1.0.5 to your home folder

Download the patch file vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz to your home folder.

Extract the Vmware-server-1.0.5-80187.tar.gz to your home folder (either via Archive manager or type tar zxf Vmware-server-1.0.5-80187.tar.gz in the terminal)

Extract the vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz to your home folder (either via Archive Manager or type tar zxf vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz in the terminal)

Install the necessary dependencies

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential
sudo apt-get install xinetd gcc-3.4

If you are using 64 bits system, you have to install the additional files

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Run the VMware Server installer

cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

You will be prompted to answer some questions. Press ‘Enter’ to select the default answer. When it reaches the point that requires you to run vmware-config.pl, type ‘No‘. The installer will exit.

Next, apply the patch

cd
cd vmware-any-any-update116
sudo ./runme.pl

This time, press ‘Enter’ for all the questions and enter ‘Yes‘ to run the vmware-comfig.pl.

Once it has finished compiling, you should now see the VMware console in your Applications->System Tools. If not, you can start VMware Server by typing vmware in the terminal.

When you launch the application, it might generate an error message saying that it can’t find the cairo version. No worry, just copy the files over and it will work.

sudo cp /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/
sudo cp /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/

For 64 bit users

sudo ln -s /usr/lib32 /usr/l32
sudo sed -i -e ‘s/usr\/lib/usr\/l32/g’ /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/loader-files.d/libgtk2.0-0.loaders
sudo sed -i -e ‘s/usr\/lib/usr\/l32/g’ /usr/lib32/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0.1200.9

That’s it. Your VMware Server should be working now.

[via Ubuntu Forum]