Installation of VMware Workstation and Express 2.0 on SuSE Linux 7.3 or Higher

Support knowledgebase (fhassel_express_73)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Version 7.3
Kernel: Versions since 2.4.7
VMware Express: Version 2.x

Situation

You want to install the old version (i.e., version 2.0) of VMware Express or Workstation on SuSE Linux 7.3 or higher or with a kernel version 2.4.7 or higher.

Procedure

First, some preparations must be made for the installation:

Install the kernel sources using YaST2. These can be found in package kernel-source, series d.

Install the browser Netscape, required to access the help pages. Netscape is no longer included in the SuSE Linux default installation. It can be found in package netscape, series xap.

Since the position of the initial script has been changed, a modification is required. Execute the following commands on the command line as "root":

cd /etc/init.d
ln -s . init.d

Further information on this subject can be found at http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/mwalter_vmware_initscript.html.

In SuSE Linux 7.3 (but not in SuSE Linux 8.0), the following modifications of the kernel header files must be performed so the VMware modules can be compiled:

cp /boot/vmlinuz.version.h /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h
cp /boot/vmlinuz.autoconf.h /usr/src/linux/include/linux/autoconf.h

Now you can install the VMware Express package, for example, with:

mount /cdrom
rpm -Uhv /cdrom/VMware-express-2.0.3-807.i386.rpm

Download the vmware-ws patch to guarantee VMware's compatibility with kernel version 2.4.7. or higher from ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/vmware/. Extract and install this package. Change to the directory of the extracted package and start the program runme.pl. To do this, proceed as follows (change the package name if necessary):

tar xfzv vmware-ws-1142-for-2.4.7.tar.gz
cd vmware-ws-1142-for-2.4.7/
./runme.pl
Follow this script's instructions (if any). Then, the VMware's configuration script vmware-config.pl will be automatically activated. When the configuration is finished, the link in directory /etc can be removed again with rm /etc/init.d/init.d .

Log in as your regular user on the graphical interface. VMware does not work properly with any language environment variables other than English. Therefore, if this variable has been set to another language, it must be reset to the default value (English). To do this, open the file .bashrc in your home directory with an editor and append the following line at the end of the file:
alias vmware="unset LANG; vmware"

Do not use any spaces before or after the equal sign. After saving the file, VMware can be now started in a shell with vmware.


See also:
o VMware (All Versions): Installing VMware on a Dual-Processor System

Keywords: VMWARE, EXPRESS, 7.3

Categories: Commercial Applications

SDB-fhassel_express_73, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 06. Nov 2001
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 15. Mai 2002 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)