VMWare cant find kernel headers even though theyre installed

[tylernt]

Longtime Slackware user, new Salix user.

Trying to run VMWare Player 2.5 (newer versions of Player require a CPU my PC doesn't have). It installed OK but when I run it, it asks for the location of the kernel headers. Using Gslapt, I installed the kernel-source and kernel-headers per the Salix wiki, but VMWare still can't find what it wants.

I tried pointing VMWare to the likely suspects like /usr/src/linux/include and /usr/include etc with no luck.

Where are the kernel header files stored and/or how can I get the missing kernel header files on Salix?

[gapan]

If you have already installed the kernel-source package there's nothing else that you should do. Are you sure you installed it? Or you could be using a different kernel. What's the output of

Code: Select all

ls /var/log/packages/kernel*

and

Code: Select all

uname -a

?

[tylernt]

root[linux]# ls /var/log/packages/kernel-*
/var/log/packages/kernel-firmware-2.6.33.4-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/kernel-headers-2.6.33.4_smp-x86-1
/var/log/packages/kernel-huge-smp-2.6.33.4_smp-i686-1
/var/log/packages/kernel-modules-smp-2.6.33.4_smp-i686-1
/var/log/packages/kernel-source-2.6.33.4_smp-noarch-1
root[linux]# uname -a
Linux darkstar 2.6.33.4-smp #2 SMP Wed May 12 22:47:36 CDT 2010 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Mobile CPU 800MHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Other than the kernel-sources and a couple of games from Gslapt, everything is stock... fresh Salix install.

Does this mean that VMWare Player 2.5 is just too old to run on a modern distro? I still wish I knew the exact filename VMWare was looking for... then it would be a simple matter to find / | grep filename.

[gapan]

Everything looks ok here, so it must be vmware's fault. Isn't there a newer version you can try?

[Shador]

Try pointing vmware here: /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/

[tylernt]

Shador, thanks for the tip. Didn't work, but I appreciate the help.

Gapan, I agree. Doing some (more) Googling, it looks like VMware Player has issues with many other distros. It seems that after a certain kernel revision, the headers changed in a way that VMWare can't parse them any more. So presumably the headers are there where expected, just not recognized.

I'd love to use a newer version of VMWare, but as of 3.0 it requires a CPU with virtualization extensions, which mine doesn't have.

I gave up on VMWare and tried qemu. I was able to get Win98 installed in a VM, but performance is awful (which I guess is pretty normal for qemu without kvm).

[gapan]

You could also try virtualbox. It doesn't need virtualization extensions on the cpu and it's certainly faster than kemu. Or you could also try kqemu for qemu, it speeds it up considerably, but still slower than virtualbox.

[tylernt]

Well I give up. Tried VirtualBox, which has a very good and well-polished user interface, but performance still sucked. I suspect VirtualBox wants a CPU with virtualization extensions.

I also tried qemu + kqemu which was faster than qemu alone, but still not fast enough to be useful.

So, I'm using Salix Live to run Gparted and move my root partition to make room for dual-boot.

Thanks for the help Gapan, but my hardware just wasn't up to the task.

While I'm here, let me say that Salix and LXDE are pretty awesome. I've dabbled in Linux desktops in the past and have never been impressed. Ubuntu/KDE are bloated, others I've tried are just obtuse or lack polish. LXDE looks clean, performs decently on ancient hardware, and it's nice to have good ol' familiar Slackware under the hood whenever I have to drop to a command line. Two thumbs up for Salix!

[sojurn]

I can only second this, it is almost identical to my own situation, also LXDE (now 13.37), also in a gray zone evidently on a system with neither Intel VT nor AMD-V (but plenty of memory and a fast enough processor). The only thing not mentioned is the desired guest system, and in my case that is W9x (I have W95, W98SE, and W2K Pro).

VirtualBox installs well (3.1.8 because of W2K), and an nlite'd W2K at least runs great in it. The problem is that VB is not optimized for W9x in particular (no guest additions) and 16-bit in general. And unfortunately that is what I really want and need (W9x and DOS programs in about equal measure). VMWare player on the other hand should run these well, but is more difficult to install, especially in this gray zone where you have to fall back on a previous version (2.5.5).

VMWare player 3.1.6 installs fine after adding the 2.6.37 kernel source, I had tried that before I noticed the part about the hardware requirements, and I am assuming that nixes it (although I could just try it), the error I am getting with the 2.5.5 WMWare player install is not that the "kernel does not match" but that it can't build the modules.

And I not not sure, but what I suspect is that the installer needs to be patched, there are examples of this at wmware community as well as linuxquestions, it is not uncommon in any case. But I haven't found one for this particular situation, to install the 2.5.5 version of VMWare player on a 2.6.37 linux kernel.

The best I can think of at the moment - short of a new system with hardware virtualization - is to try a W98lite install in VB (it might work well enough, or even a customized installer for W95 I made a long time ago), or see if I can get the 2.5.5 version of VMWare player working (it supports 2.6.18-24 kernel hosts 'out of the box' from what I can tell).

At some point virtualization of old systems becomes not only a better option than dual-booting, but the only one. What might be the best direction to pursue, any ideas?

[tylernt]

What if you ran a Linux distro with a 2.6.18-24 kernel on your Salix system using KVM, Xen, VB, QEMU, etc. Then inside the VM, install VMWare Player 2.5.5?

I know VMWare Player inside of another VMWare product doesn't work because Player performs checks to make sure it's running on bare metal. But Player might not be able to detect when it's running under KVM/Xen/VB/QEMU/etc.

Of course the resulting performance may not be stellar...

As you say, the real fix is to patch the VMWare Player 2.5.5 installer, but I wouldn't even know where to begin.