VMWare Player 6 on Ubuntu

It’s been a while since I have had VMware Player.  I have been using Virtualbox instead, but I have a client who wants a machine worked on that is already a VMware machine.  It doesn’t make sense to convert it to Virtualbox, do the work, and convert it back afterward.

So, my notes on installing VMware Player…

I already have the kernel headers and such installed.  Just in case you don’t, you should run this command to install the required packages:

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

Next, I downloaded VMware Player from the website.  Make sure to match your system, 32-bit or 64-bit.  Note that you cannot run a 64-bit machine on a 32-bit host.

It should download something like VMware-Player-7.0.0-2305329.x86_64.bundle.  I had to launch it from the terminal with:

sudo sh VMware-Player-7.0.0-2305329.x86_64.bundle

It walks through an installation wizard:

  • Agree to the license — VMware Player EULA
  • Agree to the license — OVF Tool EULA
  • Check for product updates?  Yes or No (doesn’t matter)
  • Send statistics? Yes or No (doesn’t matter)
  • VMware License Key (this is optional)
  • Installing

VMware Player Installer

When I clicked on the first machine, it let me know about a VMware Workstation version, but I just want to work with a single existing machine so I clicked “Skip this version”.  Also, another dialog asked for either an email address or a product key.

Next, it prompted me about downloading the VMware tools.  My machine already had the tools installed, but I didn’t think it was bad to have them on the host just in case, so I agreed to download them.

Sources

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