Arch Linux User Repository

After the first installation, please:

1) install the appropriate headers package(s) for your installed kernel(s): linux-headers for default kernel, linux-lts-headers for LTS kernel...

2) reboot or load vmw_vmci and vmmon kernel modules (modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon)

3) Enable the services you need (using .service units to activate them during boot or .path units to activate them when a VM is started) :

• vmware-networks: to have network access inside VMs

• vmware-usbarbitrator: to connect USB devices inside VMs

Thanks so much for navigating Broadcom's tangled web! I got the new package to install, but only after additionally installing vmware-keymaps.

//UPDATE: Published a new version of the package, should be working fine again. Enjoy!

I'm not sure who flagged the package as out of date, but that's an inappropriate usage of the functionality. Plase avoid doing so, as if abused I'll be forced to ask the AUR team to flag your user instead.

Related to the issue currently happening, it's well known and everyone is awaiting for updates from Broadcom on the matter, see https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/vmware-workstation-auto-updates-broken-after-broadcom-url-redirect/

When an official solution will be out I'll update the package accordingly. Until then, consider downloading artifacts required manually and put them next to the PKGBUILD.

Thanks for the patience.

@jihem: I've made the commit locally but I'll push it as soon as a new release will be published. Thanks for the heads up, cheers!

@MacharaSenpai Thanks very much! you are my hero.

Here I leave you what I did to install vmware without problems https://pastebin.com/39aFSGXj

and this is my PKGBUILD file that I used to install the package on my computer https://pastebin.com/vibGKh69

@ameiurl Try to make this bash command into a single line after removing iso related options(because the extract option is after iso installation parameters, do not just comment them)

 "$(readlink -f "$srcdir/VMware-Workstation-${_pkgver/_/-}.${CARCH}.bundle")" --extract "$extracted_dir"

makepkg -s                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ─╯
==> Making package: vmware-workstation 17.6.3-2 (Thu 03 Apr 2025 05:15:11 PM CST)
==> Checking runtime dependencies...
==> Checking buildtime dependencies...
==> Retrieving sources...
  -> Found VMware-Workstation-17.6.3-24583834.x86_64.bundle.tar
  -> Found vmware-bootstrap
  -> Found vmware-vix-bootstrap
  -> Found config
  -> Found configure-initscript.sh
  -> Found vmware-environment.sh
  -> Found vmware-networks-configuration.service
  -> Found vmware-networks.service
  -> Found vmware-usbarbitrator.service
  -> Found vmware-networks.path
  -> Found vmware-usbarbitrator.path
  -> Found dkms.conf.in
  -> Found Makefile
  -> Found vmmon.patch
  -> Found vmnet.patch
==> Validating source files with sha256sums...
    VMware-Workstation-17.6.3-24583834.x86_64.bundle.tar ... Passed
    vmware-bootstrap ... Passed
    vmware-vix-bootstrap ... Passed
    config ... Passed
    configure-initscript.sh ... Passed
    vmware-environment.sh ... Passed
    vmware-networks-configuration.service ... Passed
    vmware-networks.service ... Passed
    vmware-usbarbitrator.service ... Passed
    vmware-networks.path ... Passed
    vmware-usbarbitrator.path ... Passed
    dkms.conf.in ... Passed
    Makefile ... Passed
    vmmon.patch ... Passed
    vmnet.patch ... Passed
==> Extracting sources...
  -> Extracting VMware-Workstation-17.6.3-24583834.x86_64.bundle.tar with bsdtar
==> Starting prepare()...
Extracting VMware Installer...done.
root access is required for the operations you have chosen.
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in prepare().
    Aborting...

How to deal with this problem?

I just tried to download the files referenced in the PKGBUILD file from Broadcom's site. The only one I could find was the full .bundle file, none of the others seem to exist. And the softwareupdate.vmware.com domain doesn't exist anymore.

I installed the bundle file, and all seemed to go as expected. However, the website referenced for downloading the proprietary tools is also non-existent: softwareupdate.broadcom.com. I did eventually find them; forgot that the tools version number doesn't match the core package version number.

@yurikoles that makes sense. Thank you very much

Hi @kad07,

Regarding the error you posted: this is a known issue stemming from Broadcom's recent change. They now require authorization for downloads, which prevents makepkg from fetching the files directly using the URLs in the PKGBUILD.

Since the cause is external (Broadcom's policy) and already understood, repeatedly posting the same error message won't unfortunately speed up finding an alternative solution within the build script itself.

The necessary workaround for now is:

1. Manually download the required files (as listed in the PKGBUILD) from Broadcom's website using your browser.
2. Place these downloaded files in the exact same directory as the PKGBUILD file.

Once the files are present locally, makepkg will detect and use them, allowing the build process to continue successfully.

@yurikoles thanks for the response but i am not sure what I am supposed to to be seeing by reading the discussion.I can see a similar post by jayroro on 25/3 but cant see any response. Most of what I can deduce after that relates to a workaround for the broadcom servers being down. Would you mind pointing me to the discussion on a solution for this? While most of you are undoubtedly very talented and everything written here makes sense to u, for some of us, a lot of it is like greek and we are just trying to piece it all together to make it work