Installing VMWare Server on Ubuntu Linux

March 21, 2006

1. Download the VMWare Server from VMWare. Choose the .tar.gz version, not the rpm version.
2. Change to the directory containing the .tar.gz file and extract the files (run “tar xzvf vmwarserver-file.tar.gz”, substituting the correct filename).
3. You will need the version of GCC that was used to build the kernel your Ubuntu installation uses, the header files for the linux kernel and assorted utilities for building software. If you are running Ubuntu 5.10, run “sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential gcc–3.4” (i.e. version 3.4 of GCC was used to build the linux kernel for Ubuntu 5.10).
4. Now run the vmware server installer: “cd vmware-distrib” and then “sudo ./vmware-install.pl”. You should be able to accept all of the defaults when asked questions.