This post serves as tip for anybody experiencing problems installing VMWARETools under OpenSUSE (11.x) due to missing header files while all else seems fine. I researched many other posts which were cluttered, misleading, guess work etc. I felt I could contribute to the development of OpenSUSE by posting my own findings. Here they come:
Problem:
You may have a half installed version of VMWARETools and you want to start clean
Solution
Run “/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl” without quotes. This should remove previous or half installed versions of VMWARETools. If the script does not exist, my guess is that it can be ignored because an older or incomplete version of VMWARE Tools is not installed.
Problem:
You want to install VMWAREtools but don’t know how
Solution
Obtain the appropriate gzip file for your particular version of VMWARE.
Place this in a appropriate setup folder (i.e. /setups)
Extract the contents like so:
tar xvf VMwareTools-4.0.0-208167.tar.gz {Replace the filename with your particular instance}
In my case this creates a sub-folder called “vmware-tools-distrib”
Change directory to this sub-folder like so: cd vmware-tools-distrib
Usually this contains a symbolic link called “vmware-install.pl” which needs to be executed (Run) by entering “./vmware-install.pl” from the folder in which it is located.
This will attempt to run the script which might lead to more problems or not depending on your Linux version, missing modules and inconsistencies
Problem:
Running vmware-install.pl you get the following:
./vmware-install.pl
The following VMware kernel modules have been found on your system that were
not installed by the VMware Installer. Please remove them then run this
installer again.
vmhgfs
vmci
vmxnet
vmblock
I.e. - ‘rm /lib/modules/2.6.34-12-desktop/misc/<ModuleName>.{o,ko}’
Execution aborted.
Solution
This suggests other modules are already installed. In my case Open Source modules. In my case I opened YAST Software Management from the terminal and did a search for vmware which revealed that one of the following modules were already installed:[INDENT]
vmware-guest-kmp-pae
vmware-guest-kmp-desktop
vmware-guest-kmp-default
Trying to remove one forced installation of another. To preven this, tag the unselected modules as Taboo and delete the already installed module. This will prevent YAST from trying to install one of the unwanted opensource modules.
The un-install should fix the original problem[/INDENT]
Problem:
After completing VMware Tools Installation, you might might/will be asked to configure it by invoking “/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl”. After following the instructions you might get stuck with the following:
[INDENT]What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]
This refuses to pass[/INDENT]
Solution
#1# 1st Check if you have installed the appropriate kernel-source. If not, adding this in YAST will also install the appropriate kernel-devel package module. Also add kernel-syms. Selecting kernel-syms additional dependencies are automatically resolved by YAST. These should be accepted.
#2# If Step #1# has been completed or is not necessary because at some stage you have already done this but “/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl” is still complaining about missing headers, you can try the following:
*“cd /lib/modules/uname -r/build/include/linux”
You should not get an error message "No such file or directory
". Getting this suggests that the directory is missing and something else is wrong which is beyond this articles scope.
If you don’t receive an error, do the following:
ln -s …/generated/autoconf.h
ln -s …/generated/utsrelease.h
This will create the appropriate symbolic links which are refer VMWAREtools to the correct location for its installation files. The “version.h” is already located in “/lib/modules/uname -r/build/include/linux”. and should not require any extra work.
Now execute “/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl” which will magically find all that is needed. You will have to press ENTER several times for the script to complete but once complete, VMWARETools should be installed.
You can run the Toolbox from the Desktop by executing “/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox” on a terminal or as part of a script etc. VMWARE should create this for you under KDE but I suspect that that this also may require fixing.
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