Hello, forum
I needed to install Vmware Player to my linux box in order to get Symbian programming development environment set up because of a school course. However the installation procedure of Player turned out to be very difficult. I'm running Debian Etch with custom-built 2.6.20 vanilla kernel, straight from kernel.org. I tried compilation of the Vmware Player 1.0.3, with no luck, it gave me some compilation errors. Then, after searching the web I discovered that the infamous any-any update was needed. Ok, I applied the patch with version number 108. The script gave errrors like:
Updating /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/bin/vmware-config.pl ... corrupted
Updating /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/bin/vmware ... failed
Cannot open /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/bin/vmware: No such file or directory
Updating /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/bin/vmnet-bridge ... No patch needed/available
Updating /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx ... No patch needed/available
Updating /opt/vmware-player-1.0.3/lib/vmware/bin-debug/vmware-vmx ... No patch needed/available
Regardless of them, Player was able to start, at least I thought so. Then I received this error message: http://asuka.fi/u/jpaalija/tmp/vmmon-mismatch.png - "Version mismatch with vmmon module: expecting 138.0, got 137.0. You have incorrect version of the 'vmmon' kernel module. Try reinstalling Player." Ok, then I grepped the update file sources for "137.0" and found a match in include/iocontrols_compat.h from vmmon.tar . I then changed
"#define VMMON_VERSION_V55 (137 << 16 | 0)" to
"#define VMMON_VERSION_V55 (138 << 16 | 0)"
and re-packaged the vmmon.tar, included it in the original patch directory, and packed the whole patch as vmware-any-any-update108-grokio.tar.gz . Available here: http://asuka.fi/u/jpaalija/tmp/vmware-any-any-update108-grokio.tar.gz . Now, after patching the Player with the aforementioned file I am able to start it. I really don't know whether this version number changing hack fscks things up; naturally I hope it doesn't. Feel free to post your opinions about this.
