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chrisowl
Contributor
Contributor

Recently Installed Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop LTS - Basic Install & VMware Workstation

Found a bunch of problems when installing VMWare Workstation 14.1.1 Pro using the more "barebones" Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop version.

BLUFF: Install steps recommended:

1) Download the installer bundle to your home Downloads folder then run the following commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt install gcc make linux-headers-$(uname -r) dkms build-essential net-tools

chmod a+x VMware-Workstation-Full-14.1.1-7528167.x86_64.bundle

./VMware-Workstation-Full-14.1.1-7528167.x86_64.bundle

vmware

**** The rest of this covers problems I had since I didn't install vmware correctly... *******

1) Problem: gcc not found

sudo apt install gcc

2) Problem: linux headers 4.15... not found (I had installed different headers and had to remove them first)

I still got headers not found after installing them and running vmware. So I had to remove previous installations to fix the problem:

sudo apt remove linux-headers*

To install the right headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

3) Problem: Virtual Ethernet [failed] during build

All my VMs with NAT network settings had the error: "Could not connect 'Ethernet0' to virtual network 'VMnet8'" during startup and rebuilding vmware workstation didn't finish successfully. This basically meant my VMs had no network connection at all.

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

pastedImage_12.png

When I listed devices "ls /dev" the vmnet interfaces that are usually there were missing as well. To fix it I had to disable DHCP on the NAT and Host-Only network configs for vmware, run vwmare workstation, close the app again, and finally turn on the DHCP once more. After that my VMs all got network IPs and the interface worked again. Steps follow:

     1. Run network configuration

  • sudo vmware-netcfg

     2. Select the line for "vmnet1  host-only"

     3. Uncheck the box for "Use local DHCP..."

     4. Disable DHCP for "vmnet8 NAT" as well

     5. Click save

     6. Run vmware and close it again... just did this to have it load the settings

     7. Open the network configuration tool again and re-enable DHCP for both "vmnet1" and "vmnet8"

pastedImage_23.png

     8. Finally reinstall vmware and then rerun the vmware services:

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

sudo systemctl restart vmware

After that the vmware services started just fine, vmnet1 and vmnet8 devices were loaded, and I could load my VMs as before and they got IP addresses automatically.

pastedImage_27.png

Hope this helps others! Cheers!

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dragongc
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

For anyone, who would like to try your method on 16.04.x:

$ lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.

Distributor ID:    Ubuntu

Description:    Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

Release:    16.04

Codename:    xenial

with linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge i.e

$ uname -a

Linux E7470 4.15.0-21-generic #22~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 3 16:48:21 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

And it doesn't work:

Starting VMware services:

   Virtual machine monitor                                             done

   Virtual machine communication interface                             done

   VM communication interface socket family                            done

   Blocking file system                                                done

   Virtual ethernet                                                   failed

   VMware Authentication Daemon                                        done

Unable to start services

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