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
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"
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.
Hope this helps others! Cheers!
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