There is one problem though, VMWare 7.1.x releases (the latest at the time of this writing) are incompatible with 2.6.36[.x] kernel series. In order to run correctly VMWare products compile a few kernel modules that they use upon first startup. The process normally works without a problem if you are using a stock kernel from your distribution but may fail if you have a different kernel (my case). The error you get is:
"Unable to build kernel module.
See log file /tmp/vmware-root/setup-NNNNN.log for details"
Fear not as there is a patch out there for solving exactly this problem. Here is what you need to do.
1. Download the patch from
3. Extract the sources:
tar xf vmblock.tar; tar xf vmci.tar; tar xf vmmon.tar; tar xf vmnet.tar; tar xf vsock.tar
4. Apply the patch:
patch -N -p1 < vmware-7.1-2.6.36-generic.patch
5. Compress the archives again:
tar cf vmblock.tar vmblock-only; tar cf vmci.tar vmci-only; tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only; tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only; tar cf vsock.tar vsock-only;
6. Now just start your VMWare product and it should compile the modules without any problems. You can also compile and install the modules from the command line using the command:
vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Many thanks to Ad0@#vmware [freenode] & archangelamael, balding_parrot, pure_hate@#backtrack-linux[freenode] for their help, tips and guidance.