Installing VMWare Tools on Ubuntu 11.04 (Tracks)

Hello everyone,

I’ve followed the tutorial for installing VMWare Tools on Ubuntu 10.10 and ran into this error when I try to run sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic/include

The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match
your running kernel (version 2.6.38-8-virtual). Even if the module were to
compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

This is as far as I can get, because even though uname -a shows 2.6.38-8-virtual and I have those headers installed, it won’t accept the directory.

Any help in getting this to install is greatly appreciated. I do have dkms installed as well.

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

I just noticed which message I copied. I did try with /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-virtual/include, and still got the same error (the one in my original post came from trying every possible option in my /usr/src directory.

Patrick.

It is also necessary to install linux-source. I updated the wiki.

I just installed linux-source and linux-source-2.6.38-8-all (which was installed automatically with linux-source). When I run the vmware-tools-config.pl script, I get to the same place, and get the same error. Apparently my version is a VMWare tagged version, and the script needs headers that are tagged the same way.

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-virtual/include

The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match
your running kernel (version 2.6.38-8-virtual). Even if the module were to
compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

How do I get around this (or should I just reboot the vm and see if the addition of the source files fixes something)?

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

Hi,

I checked that creating the following symlinks fix the issue:

$ sudo ln -s /lib/modules/your_kernel_version/build/include/generated/utsrelease.h /lib/modules/your_kernel_version/build/include/linux/utsrelease.h
$ sudo ln -s /lib/modules/your_kernel_version/build/include/generated/autoconf.h /lib/modules/your_kernel_version/build/include/linux/autoconf.h

I hope it helps

Yep, that did the trick. I didn’t read the commands closely enough at first though. I just copied/pasted them, and when I got the errors, I realized that I needed to substitute “your_kernel_version” with 2.6.38-8-virtual (just for reference for other users). So, for example, if you’re running 2.6.38-8-virtual, you would put

$ sudo ln -s /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-virtual/build/include/generated/utsrelease.h /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-virtual/build/include/linux/utsrelease.h
$ sudo ln -s /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-virtual/build/include/generated/autoconf.h /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-virtual/build/include/linux/autoconf.h

For other versions, the “2.6.38-8-virtual” would be changed to your specific version (found with the uname -a command)

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

Nice, I’m glad to hear that.