OK, I’m at the very beginning of learning Linux right now and so even
the simplest thing gives me a head-ache. Right now I have problems
updating the VMware tools in VMware workstation 6.5. The VMware help
file says to run the RPM and then run vmware-config-tools.pl, so it
should be simple but even this has caused me to come unstuck. I think
I’ve installed the RPM ok (I had to uninstall open vmware tools first)
but when I then run vmware-config-tools.pl it throws an error:
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.
vmmemctl
vmhgfs
vmxnet
vmblock
Execution aborted.
The message also suggests deleting these files, which I do. When I
re-run vmware-config-tools.pl it tells me that the above 4 files are now
missing and asks me whether I want to compile them. Opting for ‘yes’
seems like the logical thing to do but then I get asked for the location
of the Make app (so I point it to GCC) and the ‘header’ files (I assume
the context of C++, and I have no idea where they are). I can’t help
thinking that I shouldn’t even be at this stage since the VMware help
files makes no mention of compiling apps and it all seems too involved.
Anyone any idea what I’ve done wrong??
When running openSUSE 11.0 or 11.1 (or other recent Linux distros) as
a guest on VMWare… you then get the open source version of VMware
tools installed automatically.
This gives you the choice to either,
don’t install the VMWare native tools… it should run fine as is.
first remove the opensource version packages -> to do this search
for ‘vmware’ using YaST > Software Management and remove the related
packages. After that the RPM should be able to be installed.
If you want to install the RPM you will need to compile these.
Compiling is a way to make the installed RPM files suitable for your
system. The vmware-config-tools.pl is a script that does the compiling
for you.
Not to dazzle… but:
Before you can compile something there are some software components you
need first (like pans to kook in )
Using YaST > Software Management first install;
kernel-source
make
gcc
gcc++
After adding those packages (and removing the open version of the
vmware tools), you should be albe to run the vmware-config-tools.pl
script.
Thanks WJ! Installing those extra components seems to have done the
trick. Re-compiling those 4 modules went well and now VMware Workstation
is detecting that the new version of Tools is installed. Incidentally
the open vmware tools work fine except that VMWorkstation 6.5 has some
features (like ACE) that necessitate the ‘genuine’ vmware tools.
)