Indroduction

VMWare is a Virtual Machine used for installing an Operating system inside another Operating System. After installing VMWare on any operating system, we can start VMWare which will act as a system. We can install operating systems in VMWare so that we can switch to other OS very easly,  we don’t need to restart our system, we can work oon both OS at the same time.

My Experience

The VMWare Virtual Machine is one of my favorite software, which I was used on Ubuntu 7.04 Gutsy. It is very easy to install VMWare on Ubuntu 7.04.

$ apt-get install vmware-server

But after installing Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy and other essintial libraries and importan packages in my system. When I seached the package ‘vmware-server’ using apt-cache search, there is no package like this. So I added the repository to sourcess.list which is used by Ubuntu 7.04 for installing VMWare. After that the package ‘vmware-server’ was listed. When I tried to install the pakage ‘vmware-server’ using ‘apt-get install’, it show some error regarding linux-kernal-module. After that I tried to install VMWare using source code, but it also produce the same error.

Then I searche the web for any help, luckily I got an helpful stuff. Then I successfully installed vmware-server on Ubuntu 8.04.

If you are facing the same issue, then here is the full guide to install VMware Server and get it working in Hardy Heron:
Installing VMWare Server on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy

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 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
$  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.

$ vmware

Goto Applications ->  System Tools -> VMWare Server Console