Latest kernels and VMWare

[Tom London]

On 7/16/06, Jim Bevier <jim at jbsys.com> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christopher A. Williams" <chrisw01 at comcast.net>
> To: "For testers of Fedora Core development releases"
> <fedora-test-list at redhat.com>
> Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 5:38 AM
> Subject: Re: Latest kernels and VMWare
>
>
> I have the 101 fixes and vmware did work until the 2.6.18 mods started ~2356
> kernel I think.  Update to rawhide and you will find vmware no longer builds
> or works!  Note that I was using kernels 2396 and 2401 on FC6T1, not FC5.
> Vmware works fine on FC5.
>
> Jim
>
An update on this:

Petr (from VMWare) has prepared version 102 patches:
http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmware-any-any-update102.tar.gz

Unfortunately, 102 does not patch things up for Rawhide kernels (just yet?).

Here are the issues:
    1. With the new 102 patches, vmware-config.pl now properly 'finds'
the proper include directory.
    2. Although there is a patch to support the 'relocation' of
utsrelease info, the trigger is based on the kernel release being
2.6.18 or higher. Since Fedora does not bump the release until the
'real release' (i.e., it stays put at 2.6.17 for 2.6.18-rcX kernels),
the trigger does not function properly.  This is a minor problem that
can be easily worked around.
    3. With workaround for 2, vmmon compiles and successfully 'insmod's.
    4. Compile of vmnet succeeds, but insmod fails due to a missing
symbol (lockdep_init_map). Appears that a kernel source code change
(or some such) is needed (replacing
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(lockdep_init_map) with
EXPORT_SYMBOL(lockdep_init_map), perhaps).

Suggestion is to wait until 2.6.18-rc2 to try again:
http://www.vmware.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=437430#437430

Until then, I am happily running/keeping my .2339 kernel when I need
to run VMWare.

tom
-- 
Tom London