VMware Server Beta on Ubuntu 7
Anyone wanting to run virtual machines on Ubuntu will be interested to hear that VMware currently have a beta version of VMware server available for free download. However, installation has a few pitfalls, so here is how to do it.
Dapper Update
I'm still amazed by the popularity of this article. For anyone still struggling with the installation of VMWare Server (now out of beta but still a free download) - you'll be pleased to know that its easier on Dapper as you don't need to worry about the gcc version. As described in the comment from mips below (many thanks mips), you just need to do this:
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential xinetd linux-headers-`uname -r`
$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Prepare your host
To run any VMware products on Ubuntu, there are a couple of prerequisites. The installation involves compilation of a kernel module, so you first need to install the kernel headers for your kernel version, for example:
root@ubuntu:~ # uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.12-10-k7 ...
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.12-10-k7
You will also need gcc-3.4 (edit: only necessary on Ubuntu Breezy):
sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4
Get VMware Server
Next head over to www.vmware.com/products/server/ and download the free VMware Server beta. You will need to register and then you will get a license key by email.
Download the tar.gz version, extract it, and cd to the installation directory:
tar -xzvf VMware-server-e.x.p-22874.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
Run the installer, making sure you will be using gcc-3.4 (Breezy only):
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.4
./vmware-install.pl
Accept all the defaults, with the possible exception of the directory to store your virtual machines - I chose to put them in a subdirectory of my home directory, as space is limited in my root partition. Note you'll be prompted for your license key during installation - this will be in your email.
Try out the Browser Appliance
To test out your shiny new VMware installation, download the Browser Appliance pre-built virtual machine from the VMware site. You'll be pleased to discover that its actually a pretty standard installation of Ubuntu 5.10!
To run it, fire up VMware Server from your Gnome (or KDE) menu, and choose to open an existing VM. If your host machine is in a NAT network behind a router that gives out addresses with DHCP, then change the eth0 networking type to "bridged". Networking should then work straight away - your guest machine will pick up an IP from your router.
And that's all folks - comments welcome as always!