VMware Workstation and Linux 2.6.26

I had to update my kernel to something 2.6.26, so VMware was broken again. I tried to fix it with the previously working fix from here, but that didn’t work. I had a look at the recently released vmware-any-any updates. No, these didn’t work for me either. When I tried to start a virtual machine I got a message like

Version mismatch with vmmon module: expecting 138.0, got 168.0

Yes, I know – using VMware Workstation 5.5 is pretty stupid and doesn’t make things easy – nonetheless no explanations now. Thus I extracted the vmmon.tar file and edited vmmon-only/include/iocontrols.h and in line 48 there is

#define VMMON_VERSION           (168 << 16 | 0)

I fixed this by modifying the version value from 168 to 138, saved the changes and once again ran the runme.pl script. Okay that helped. Alright. No, it obviously didn’t help.

Unable to change virtual machine power state: Cannot find a valid peer process to connect to.

GRMBL. Now that’s stupid. So I lurked around every corner and found this vmware-any-any-update117 version which finally helped me out.

HTH

P.S. Of course I consider dropping VMware for some other solution…asap.

Edit: For linux 2.6.27 just have a look at this page!

8 Comments

  1. Michael Fischer Says:

    Thank you for posting the link to vmware-any-any-update117. I had the same problem as you, and it works for me, too.

  2. Tino Says:

    Son of a bitch, it worked! I’ve been holding off on upgrading to the 2.6.26 kernel because of this issue and this solved the problem. Thanks!!

    Of course, I get Workstation to work under 2.6.26.6 the same day 2.6.27 comes out … wonder if it’ll be the same crap all over again.

  3. emillkrueper Says:

    It works well with 2.6.26 _but_ I haven’t found a solution for 2.6.27 yet. When applying different vmware-any-any-updates I always got something like:

    /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/compat_semaphore.h:5:27: error: asm/semaphore.h: No such file or directory
    /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriver_Ioctl’:
    /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1831: error: too many arguments to function ‘smp_call_function’
    make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only] Error 2
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27′
    make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
    make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only’
    Unable to build the vmmon module.

    The new NVIDIA driver NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.80-pkg1.run works perfect associated with linux 2.6.27. But obviously it’s always always always the same with vmware. Good to know I don’t need vmware any longer. Nevertheless, I’ll keep you updated with any progress here. So stick to Linux 2.6.26 for now when you’d like to use vmware. Best regards.

  4. kang Says:

    there’s updates on http://www.insecure.ws/
    but of course, i’m not doing it the same day as the kernel is releaed and so on.. so using something else than vmware or a newer vmware version is probably recommended. unless you’re like me and gotta stick with it x)

  5. VMware Workstation and Linux 2.6.27 | emil krueper Says:

    […] I received a comment from Kang about a fix for VMware Workstation 5.xy and Linux […]

  6. Hristofor Georgiev Says:

    Thank you very much for this great link.

    It realy help me a lot today when i got: Version mismatch with vmmon module: expecting 138.0, got 168.0

    On etch updated to lenny with Workstation 5.5.

    Thank you very much.

  7. Jehster Says:

    Well thank you very much! I can’t believe how something as useful as vmware has become so much of a pain. And don’t even get me started on vmware-server 2… blech….

  8. Jehster Says:

    Spoke too soon… vmware starts but can’t communicate with any of my guests… fuggit… back to 2.6.18 I go.

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