VMware is a proprietary and commercial PC virtualization solution running on amd64 compatible CPUs (supported CPUs), since version 11. It allows you to run any x86 compatible OS in a kind of 'sandbox' - inside the VMware virtual machine you can run other operating systems like Windows, FreeBSD or some other version of Linux. Both Windows and a Linux versions are available.
For Free Software alternatives see our SystemVirtualization section.
VMware vCenter Converter is zero-cost and allows you to convert your physical OS to a virtual environment OS. You can use it for example to convert your physical installations or other virtual machines types to a VMware virtual environment.
Commercial products like VMware Workstation Pro is available for Linux.
VMware is not a true emulator, it doesn't emulate a CPU like Bochs does, it wraps CPU commands around. It does emulate various hardware devices like network, graphics and audio cards.
VMware Workstation Player can easily be installed by downloading the relevant bundle and then running as root eg sudo sh VMware-Player-15.5.6-16341506.x86_64.bundle on a an vmplayer is useful for running a single VM guest.
Contents
Installing VMware on Debian
VMware Workstation Pro/Player 17
VMware Workstation can be easily installed on Debian by downloading the required bundle and executing the following commands:
chmod +x VMware-Workstation-Full-17.0.0-20800274.x86_64.bundle sudo ./VMware-Workstation-Full-17.0.0-20800274.x86_64.bundle
In order to run VMware Workstation 17 properly, you must install the required packages to build the VMware kernel modules:
sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
VMware Workstation Pro/Player 16
VMware Workstation can be easily installed on Debian by downloading the required bundle and executing the following commands:
chmod +x VMware-Workstation-Full-16.2.3-19376536.x86_64.bundle sudo ./VMware-Workstation-Full-16.2.3-19376536.x86_64.bundle
In order to run VMware Workstation 16 properly, you must install the required packages to build the VMware kernel modules:
sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
VMware Workstation Pro/Player 15/15.5
VMware Workstation can be easily installed on Debian Buster and Debian Stretch, since VMware Workstation requires a kernel version <= 5.4, without any kernel patches, by downloading the required bundle and executing the following commands:
chmod +x VMware-Workstation-Full-15.5.5-16285975.x86_64.bundle sudo ./VMware-Workstation-Full-15.5.5-16285975.x86_64.bundle
In order to run VMware Workstation 15 properly, you must install the required packages to build the VMware kernel modules:
sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Kernel Patches
You can install older versions VMware Workstation on Debian Bullseye, Bookworm or Sid using kernel patches: kernel_patches. You need to install the following packages before installing the kernel patches:
sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) git
Here is a tutorial on how to install kernel patches,: kernel_patch_tutorial
Converting existing machines to VMware
Physical Machines to VMware/Hyper-V to VMware using VMware Converter
You are able to convert any existing operating system to a virtual environment as a guest on Debian host using VMware Converter.
VMware converter requires to be run on a Windows machine, since it has no Linux version
Windows
When you are converting existing windows you might need to activate you installation again. Windows will detect different hardware and will prompt you for a new/current activation key.
VirtualBox to VMware
Here is a tutorial on how to convert existing VirtualBox machines to VMware: VBox to VMware
Using VMware
License Keys
To enter Serial Number you can click on Help->Enter Serial Number or you can run:
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx --new-sn 123-123-123-123...123
Running vmware-netcfg (Virtual Network Editor) with VMware Player
VMware player by default does not give you the greater control over your network that vmware-netcfg used in VMware Workstation can provide.
The following commands will allow you to run vmware-netcfg
cd /usr/lib/vmware/bin
ln -s /usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader vmware-netcfg
ln -s /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-netcfg /usr/bin/vmware-netcfg
Credit to Michael Gr.
VMware guest additions install on a Debian guest
It is no longer required to install kernel-headers and run the vmware-guest-additions installer script, since the debian repos already include a version of the vmware-guest-addition open-vm-tools. To install the guest additions execute the following command:
sudo apt install open-vm-tools
VMware, Debian Kernel Upgrade
On an apt upgrade when your kernel has been updated, you no longer need to download the kernel headers and reconfigure vmware. Since the guest additions are now provided by the open-vm-tools package.
Troubleshooting
GCC version is not found null after VMware Player 16 successful install on Debian Sid
In order to enable the VMware Workstation kernel you must compile them manually as root, using these commands:
cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source tar xvf vmnet.tar cd vmnet-only make cd .. tar xvf vmmon.tar cd vmmon-only make cd .. cp vmmon.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmmon.ko cp vmnet.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmnet.ko depmod -a service vmware restart
source: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/643016
vmware.service restart fail after running apt upgrade on Debian Sid
You must run these as root to rebuild the kernel modules:
cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source tar xvf vmnet.tar cd vmnet-only make cd .. tar xvf vmmon.tar cd vmmon-only make cd .. cp vmmon.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmmon.ko cp vmnet.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmnet.ko depmod -a service vmware restart
Additional resources
* Arch Linux wiki article for VMware Workstation
* Fedora Linux wiki article for VMware Workstation
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