Re: VMWare player: why no package?

[Sami Kallio <xaicawa-guest@users.alioth.debian.org>]

On Tue, 2008-01-01 at 20:46 -0500, Carl Fink wrote:
> VMWare Player's source has been released. Does anyone know why it
> isn't
> packaged for Debian? Should I just submit an RTP?


I couldn't find any information about the license for VMWare Player on
vmware webpage, I only could find the EULA which reads:

"3.2 License Limitations. You may not copy the Software except for a
reasonable number of machine-readable copies of the Software for backup
or archival purposes and except as expressly permitted in this EULA. You
may not remove any titles, trademarks or trade names, copyright notices,
legends, or other propri­etary markings on the Software. You are not
granted any rights to any trademarks or service marks of VMware. VMware
retains all rights not expressly granted to you." [1]

I could find a download of source, but it was source for pixops, not
whole Player [2]

Maybe I'm just missing (again) something important x)


> Gripe: I had to rebuild the kernel because VMWare Player requires certain
> kernel modules, and they don't ship prebuilt ones for Debian.  Their
> installer will then try to compile them, but they GCC build has to match the
> GCC used to compile the kernel, and Debian kernels are compiled with a
> significantly older GCC than is included in Testing.

I had same problem when I built the VMWare Workstation modules, I solved
it simply by relinking gcc to older gcc version, and Workstation is
running fine.

[1] http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/player.html
[2] http://www.vmware.com/download/player/open_source.html