VMware and Kernel 2.6.6-1.427

[Joe Conway]

ed wrote:
> I am trying to compile VMware torun on the 2.6.6-1.427 kernel, but I
> keep gettinga compile error. It worked very well with the previous 2.6
> kernel. Here is what I am getting in the attached file.

I also got this, and found that I needed to hack the vmware module 
source to fix it. It seems a kernel struct (I don't remember which one 
specifically now) that used to define 'count', now defines the same 
member as '_count'.

Here's what I did -- use at your own risk ;-)

1. Find the files vmmon.tar and vmnet.tar. Mine were in
    /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source

2. Make a backup copy of each
       cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
       cp vmmon.tar vmmon.tar.bak
       cp vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.bak

3. untar both files:
       tar xf vmmon.tar
       tar xf vmnet.tar
    This should create two new folders -- vmmon-only & vmnet-only

5. In each folder, find the file compat_mm.h and edit it. In both
    cases, find the line

       #  define page_count(page) atomic_read(&(page)->count)

    and change it to

       #  define page_count(page) atomic_read(&(page)->_count)

    This was line 28 in my version of these files. Save the changes.

6. Delete the original tar files and replace with modified tar files
       rm vmmon.tar
       tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
       rm vmnet.tar
       tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only

Now you should be able to successfully run vmware-config.pl. I get two 
"incompatible pointer type" warnings, but I was getting those before 
with the 2.6.5 kernel, and they didn't seem to hurt anything.

HTH,

Joe