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

Package is compiling correctly - no errors, but cant start any VM - VMMON error on start - VMMON installed 410, required 416. There's no also vmware.service. Tried compile vmmon from github dosent work too.

Downloaded bundle from official site VMware-Workstation-Full-17.0.2-21581411.x86_64.bundle working without any problem, and no issues like - keyboard lag error in many distros, terminals. 3D Acceleration works perfect in new version on Nidia 525.xx drivers.

Sry 4 for my language , english isnt my native.

@jihem

This also works:

cat ~/.local/share/applications/vmware-workstation.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Hidden=true

Nice, thanks

@s3rj1k To be honest, I don't want to make this package more complicated than it already is, just to allow to hide a part of the programs installed. This would not be difficult to implement, but it means I will have to check if the option to hide the Workstation part is not broken after at least each major update, and it complicates the review of the package by people who want to check it. I think it does not worth it.

Just a tip to hide the Workstation .desktop entry without changing anything in the package: creating the file /usr/local/share/applications/vmware-workstation.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Hidden=true

And then start the command update-desktop-database.

@jihem Hmm, so maybe just skip desktop entries and like force-disable ability to enter a product key, something like expired trial.

The goal is not to save space but to hide the paid part leaving only player to be visible and other bits disabled to some extend.

@s3rj1k I don't think this is really possible, especially if the goal is to save disk space. A large part of the package is the libraries which are used by both Workstation and Player, and the binary itself is the same:

# LANG=C ll /usr/lib/vmware/bin/{vmware,vmplayer}
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Mar 19 10:19 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmplayer -> /usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Mar 19 10:19 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware -> /usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader

Very much appreciated for the work being done here.

Is there a possibility to add some kind of optional switch to disable workstation binaries being installed, so that only player needed parts are installed?

@jihem I just rebuilt it; I'm not seeing any more issues.

Thank you so much for fixing this.

Carlos

@Carlos I applied only 2 of the 3 patches. Can you confirm that the current package version fix your problem?

@jihem

That makes sense - he also does a good job of making each commit be cherry-pickable. I think the one that fixes the oops is 3bfe216f5b: vmnet: use explicit module_init() and module_exit() (#187). That was the last one I picked before the kernel did not oops anymore. However, I also had picked e3f4f1774: modules: rename conflicting DO_ONCE() macro, and cf2b9221a: vmnet: work around field-spanning write warning (#195). I'm not sure if these 2 commits are necessary though?

Thanks so much for pulling these Changes.

EDIT: here's the updated patch with only these three commits (https://gist.githubusercontent.com/CarlosM10011/c6b8a4f34d43516e377ab93548744a2d/raw/318c9ed4166cd775e9769751360e33127c4f9a8b/0001-Patch-modules-for-linux-6.1-and-linux-6.2.patch).

I can confirm that this inserts into both the LTS and mainline kernels packaged by Arch and am running a Windows VM with no problems on the LTS kernel.

@Carlos

I am aware about Michal Kubeček's repository. This man makes a great job to make VMware modules compiling cleanly (without any warning) on most distributions and with newer kernel versions. I often apply his patches to make this package working after a new kernel version that breaks something and before a new VMware release fix it.

But I want to keep vmmon.patch and vmnet.patch as small as possible (to simplify a little bit the maintenance and reviewing of this package) with only the patches required to be able to compile and run theses modules. So, I won't apply your entire patch that contains a lot of unneeded patches.

However, if this package crashes your system, it is necessary to fix it, but I would like to only apply the useful patch(es). I think the following patch could be the one that fix your crash: https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/commit/650fb3abeb82f2b7d3a14f9579a7529d153636b7. Can you test it? If it solves the problem, I will add it in the package. If not, could you remove one by one each commit of the branch workstation-17.0.1 related to the vmnet module, to discover which one is necessary to fix your crash?