vmware modules 2.6.30-rc3

If you are using VMware-Workstation-6.5.1-126130.x86_64, you will find that it does not work on kernels greater than or equal to 2.6.29.  The vmware modules will not load.  I found one patch for vmware to work with the Linux kernel 2.6.29 on the vmware forums, and I came up with another patch for 2.6.30-rc3 on my own.  If you know who made the original patch (as I have lost the link to the forum), please let me know who that is so I can give credit where credit is due.  Below are the results.

I have tried these changes on 2.6.30-rc3, and 2.6.30-rc7, and they seem to work fine.  I would imagine that they would work on 2.6.30-rc3, 2.6.30-rc4, 2.6.30-rc5, 2.6.30-rc6, and 2.6.30-rc7, but I have not confirmed.  They may also work on 2.6.30 versions that are less than rc3.

Once you have finished installing vmware, put the following files all in the same directory and run the shell script.  It should backup and then patch the original source.

sh vmware-modules-2.6.30-rc3.sh

You will find backup copies of the original source in /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source-backup.

Once you are finished, you will be asked to run another command to install the new modules.

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

If it fails on a newer version of the kernel, you should be able to simply find out what the problems are, and why it’s incompatible with the new kernel, and then…

  1. create a new patch file
  2. modify the shell script to apply the patch after the two patches above
  3. move the “source” folder to a backup name
  4. move the source-backup folder to the “source” folder
  5. re-run the shell script

I hope this is useful for someone.  If you find it useful, I would appreciate hearing about it by a comment.  Also, feel free to link to this blog.

Thanks.