VMWare Kernel Modules will not compile or update on Ubuntu 12.04

Question

Kernel Module Update was required when opening VMWare client (vmplayer) then following error occurs. Any idea would be appreciated.

Unable to start services.
See log file /tmp/vmware-root/setup-NNN.log for details    (Note: NNN looks like random numbers)

On GUI that show progress of updating, "Virtual Netowork Device" show red flag appears. Content of .log file is here: http://pastebin.com/wEKT5UHf

This page suggests installing linux-headers-generic and build-essential, which are already installed on mine (thus no good).

This could be 1st execution of vmplayer on my machine since I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 from 11.10.

Environment: VMware Player 4.0.3 build-703057

Solution 1

I had the same problem, that VMWare didn't work any after updating to Ubuntu 12.04. Instead of installing a patch from an untrusted page, I just downloaded and installed the latest version VMware-Player-5.0.0 from the VMWare-Page:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/5_0

So far, it seems to work properly. I hope it's OK for you too.

Solution 2

VMWare is behind the times and the VMWare modules will not compile by default on kernel 3.2, which Ubuntu 12.04 uses.

Please use the patch available in this blog post, and then try to compile again.

I can confirm that the patch worked for me on both VMWare Player 4.x and Workstation 8.x on Ubuntu 12.04.

Comments

[IsaacS]

It works perfect. As I commented in the same blog, only tweak I needed was to modify plreqver with correct vmplayer version, in the given .sh file in the patch (goo.gl/fF4Yk). Thanks!

[IsaacS]

On a follow-up note, It happens with 4.0.4 but same patch was effective.

[IsaacS]

While @izx' solution worked perfectly (esp. at that moment when I asked this question), I feel this is more ideal and worked just fine on my machine. So I re-chose this as an answer.