Installation VMvare Workstation on Fedora 5

I use WMvare Workstation 5 on my home PC under Windows about four months. Once I decided to try it on Linux. Installation of VMware is more or less trivial. First, download VMware Workstation for Linux (I chose RPM) and install it. After that before the first running VMware it should be configured using VMware config script:
vmware-config.pl
But there is the first trick. It needs to build a module for the kernel. Therefore the kernel header should be installed:
yum install kernel-devel
On my PC kernel headers were placed in the /lib/modules/2.6.16-1.2080_FC5/build/include. But as I understand the script cannot parse correctly the latest kernel’s version names. You have to apply this simple patch to the vmware-config.pl:
--- vmware-config.pl.old 2005-12-15 21:55:24.000000000 -0800
+++ vmware-config.pl 2006-02-04 16:53:06.000000000 -0800
@@ -1969,8 +1969,8 @@
. ' -E - | ' . shell_string($gHelper{'grep'}) . ' '
. shell_string($pattern));
chomp($header_page_offset);
- $header_page_offset =~ s/^$pattern \(?0x([0-9a-fA-F]{8,}).*$/$1/;
- if ($header_page_offset =~ /[0-9a-fA-F]{8,}/) {
+ if ($header_page_offset =~ /^$pattern \(?0x([0-9a-fA-F]{8,})/) {
+ $header_page_offset = $1;
# We found a valid page offset
if (defined($gSystem{'page_offset'}) and
not (lc($header_page_offset) eq lc($gSystem{'page_offset'})))

But it isn’t finish yet. There is another bug with compilation of VMware kernel module. If you see something like that:
Building the vmmon module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.16-1.2080_FC5/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.16-1.2080_FC5-i686'
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
from /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:37:5: warning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" is not defined
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:43:5: warning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" is not defined
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
from /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:60: error: conflicting types for ‘poll_initwait’
include/linux/poll.h:45: error: previous declaration of ‘poll_initwait’ was here
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:145: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:149: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.16-1.2080_FC5-i686'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.
you should download vmware-any-any-update, untar it and run script runme.pl. It will apply patches to VMware files and run vmware-config.pl.
If you do everything correct you should see the message:
The configuration of VMware Workstation 5.5.1 build-19175 for Linux for this
running kernel completed successfully.
Now VMware Workstation is ready to use. However, it needs a license key. You can get it here (it’ll be valid during 30 days).
That’s it! Now you can create and run desired OS.

You can ask me what you should do when the trial period of VMware Workstation ends. You have two options: buy it or use VMware Player which is free. VMware Player can run Virtual Appliance created with VMware Workstation and it’s completely FREE. Don’t forget uninstall VM Workstation before you install VMware player!

P. S. Plutohome installation on VMware Workstation (click to see full size screenshot):