Installing VMware Workstation 6.5.1 and VMware Player on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

Precursors and Requirements

Eclipse Integration

If you will be running Eclipse you will first want to install eclipse and perhaps any Eclipse plugin's you will be using before proceeding with the installation of VMware Workstation.

Update and Upgrade your System

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install your kernel sources

sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-`uname -r`

Install tools for compiling

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential

Installing VMware

Create some handy variables

you can customize to suit your needs

#variable for your vmware bundle
PROGRAM=VMware-Workstation-6.5.1-126130.x86_64.bundle

#variable for your temporary directory
DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY=${HOME}/Desktop/temp

Create a temporary directory

mkdir ${DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY}

Move into your temporary directory

cd ${DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY

Download VMware Workstation

Create a text file with the MD5 checksum from the VMware site

touch ${DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY md5sum

Verify the integrity of your downloaded package

md5sum $PROGRAM >> md5sum2
cat md5sum # Shows checksum file you created with the checksum provided by vmware
cat md5sum2 # Checksum made by you for comparison
# compare totals, they should be equal, if not your download was corrupted.

Install VMware

sudo ./$PROGRAM

Notes:

You may be prompted for the Eclipse directory. This is for debugging and is not required in order to run VMware.

References