As I had VMware Workstation running on my previous SUSE distros, I decided to install the latest available version 5.5 on my SUSE 10.1 desktop. I usually use VMware Workstation to run WindowsXP, as there are few applications that I need to get my job done, as well as to test and see various Linux distributions.
The good thing about VMware Workstation is that now it can run 64-bit versions of Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris as guest OS. It also has improved support for 64-bit host OS. To run 64-bit guest OS you will need to meet certain requirements which are:
- AMD Athlon 64, revision D or later
- AMD Opteron, revision E or later
- AMD Turion 64, revision E or later
- AMD Sempron, 64-bit-capable revision D or later (experimental support)
- Intel EM64T VT-capable processors (experimental support)
My PC Specs:
- AMD Athlon64 Venice E-6 Core
- SUSE Linux 10.1 x86_64
- VMware Workstation 5.5.1-19715
- KDE 3.5.2 with kernel 2.6.16-13
As in previous times, I have noticed that people are getting problems while installing VMware on SUSE 10.1, as with the current version you also need to apply patch for Workstation to work properly.
I. Prerequisites
1. kernel-source | 2. gcc | 3. gcc-c++ | 4. make
All these are available on the CD/DVD that you used to install your SUSE from., or from “install-source” repository.
1. Now prepare the kernel modules:
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make mrproper
# make cloneconfig
# make modules_prepare
II. Installing VMware Workstation 5.5
2. Change to root and then install the rpm:
# rpm -ivh VMware-workstation-5.5.x-xxxx.i386.rpm

III. Applying Patch and Configuring VMware Workstation
3. Download the latest vmware-any-any-update???.tar.gz file from here.
4. Extract the using filemanager in your DE or by typing the following within the terminal at the location where the file was downloaded.
~> tar -xzf vmware-any-any-update???.tar.gz
(where ??? is the patch version)
5. After the file has been extracted, change to the /vmware-any-any-update??? directory and run:
# ./runme.pl

During the configuration, which automatically follows right after the patch has been applied, I accepted all of the defaults to the questions that are asked, meaning the paths to directories that were listed, “yes” wherever there was [yes] as default option, and “no” where it was [no]. When doing network configuration install, you will need to use “Shift:” -then- “q” to exit the editor mode, as well in the beginning to quit the license agreement.
As you can see from the nest line, once patch has been completed, it asks to automatically continue with configuration, that we usually do with issuing “vmware-config.pl” command. I selected yes and:


(I am not sure what those error logs are, but it doesn’t look serious and VMware worked nicely after complete install)
Once the modules have been compiled, the next phase is to configure networking. As I have ethernet connection for internet as well as wireless for home networking, I selected eth0 as I wantmy guest OS to have access to internet.

Once it’s all configured, the final stage follows, which creates the list of modules that are supposed to be loaded when your SUSE 10.1 starts, as well as loads them right away to start using your VMware Workstation.

IV. Guest USB Access
Execute the following as root to have access to USB:
# mount -t usbfs /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
That’s it. All very easy and smooth.
Here is a screenshot of working VMware Workstation 5.5 on my SUSE 10.0 x86_64 desktop with Ubuntu 6.06 RC AMD64 version (don’t like the orange color theme):
