Arch Linux User Repository

After the first installation, please:

1) install the appropriate headers package(s) for your installed kernel(s): linux-headers for default kernel, linux-lts-headers for LTS kernel...

2) reboot or load vmw_vmci and vmmon kernel modules (modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon)

3) Enable the services you need (using .service units to activate them during boot or .path units to activate them when a VM is started) :

• vmware-networks: to have network access inside VMs

• vmware-usbarbitrator: to connect USB devices inside VMs

Hi, I recently adopted vmware-host-modules-dkms-git package and upgraded it to build the latest 17.5.0 branch commit on https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules. Right now it conflicts with vmware-workstation, both providing dkms host modules. I suggest removing dkms from this package and adding a dependency on vmware-host-modules-dkms-git (and I will remove conflict with vmware-workstation from vmware-host-modules-dkms-git). This way we can follow https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules newer kernel fixes more closely, without needing to rebuild this rather big package. I tested it locally, it works fine for me, this is my local patch:

diff --git a/PKGBUILD b/PKGBUILD
index de259d0..bbdb173 100644
--- a/PKGBUILD
+++ b/PKGBUILD
@@ -17,14 +17,13 @@ pkgname=vmware-workstation
 pkgver=17.5.0
 _buildver=22583795
 _pkgver=${pkgver}_${_buildver}
-pkgrel=2
+pkgrel=3
 pkgdesc='The industry standard for running multiple operating systems as virtual machines on a single Linux PC.'
 arch=(x86_64)
 url='https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-for-linux.html'
 license=(custom)
 install="vmware-workstation.install"
 conflicts=(
-  vmware-modules-dkms
   vmware-ovftool
   vmware-patch
   vmware-systemd-services
@@ -33,7 +32,7 @@ provides=(
   vmware-ovftool
 )
 depends=(
-  dkms
+  vmware-host-modules-dkms-git
   fuse2
   gtkmm3
   libcanberra
@@ -69,11 +68,6 @@ source=(
   'vmware-usbarbitrator.service'
   'vmware-networks.path'
   'vmware-usbarbitrator.path'
-
-  'dkms.conf.in'
-  'Makefile'
-  'vmmon.patch'
-  'vmnet.patch'
 )
 sha256sums=(
   '7807f7bf10228c4c9950711694c34a7bc85f193366a2c3cc44996bb1601b38f8'
@@ -89,11 +83,6 @@ sha256sums=(
   'd7a9fbf39a0345ae2f14f7f389f30b1110f605d187e0c241e99bbb18993c250d'
   '16a73931894a65d43da489ff25d07647c0ecddf60d443b103bceca63504910fe'
   'fe1b1be8297f4170406f97dd1f8b385d911faf45afe19cbc0c26b8092b3ddf8d'
-
-  '10562d11d50edab9abc2b29c8948714edcb9b084f99b3766d07ddd21259e372e'
-  '273d4357599a3e54259c78cc49054fef8ecfd2c2eda35cbcde3a53a62777a5ac'
-  '27c640bd793eb1f8d7561060df9562ffc44832cf5c69ed79ff4408abd14ae493'
-  'b86f61a37a9dd74257751eba2478c471b6e1ccac6476c5845d3371236833a4fb'
 )
 options=(!strip emptydirs)

@@ -358,23 +347,7 @@ fi
     -i "$pkgdir/etc/vmware-installer/bootstrap"


-  # Patch up the VMware kernel sources and configure DKMS.
-
-  dkms_dir="$pkgdir/usr/src/$pkgname-$_pkgver"
-
-  install -Dm 644 "$srcdir/Makefile" "$dkms_dir/Makefile"
-  install -Dm 644 "$srcdir/dkms.conf.in" "$dkms_dir/dkms.conf"
-
-  sed \
-    -e "s/@PKGNAME@/$pkgname/g" \
-    -e "s/@PKGVER@/$_pkgver/g" \
-    -i "$dkms_dir/dkms.conf"
-
-  for module in vmmon vmnet; do
-    tar -xf "vmware-vmx/lib/modules/source/$module.tar" -C "$dkms_dir"
-    msg "Patching $module module for DKMS"
-    patch -p2 --read-only=ignore --directory="$dkms_dir/$module-only" < "$srcdir/$module.patch"
-  done
+  # Remove original VMware kernel sources.

   rm -r "$pkgdir/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source"

When running firefox and vmware together, it sometimes get frozen, and it happens usually when I copy something and swith to the vmware it stuck, but clicks on the frozen screen still make sense. My vmware version is 17.5.0-2, archlinux with kernel 6.6.9-arch1-1, and wm is hyprland with nvidia video card, I am not sure if the N card is the culprit:(

[deleted]

@JThundley - I agree with you regarding issues with zen. I switched to linux-lts as suggested by @jihem and OS is way more stable but unfortunately vmware 17.5.x immediately hangs my thinkpad, so i will stay with 17.0.2 for a while. Maybe new version will solve it. I also disabled huge pages as wiki suggest, but it didn't help.

BTW I found another issue not related to that one, caused by nvidia gpu (vm is running but not accessible and notebook hangs afer a while) but easy solution is to avoid using nvidia and stay with intel ;).

@wgustowski I think there's a problem with the latest release of linux-zen. I had all kinds of weird "rcu_preempt detected stalls on cpus/tasks" in dmesg and seemingly random programs would freeze up. I downgraded to the previous version and then had trouble building vmware modules for it so I decided to try the latest vmware. I'd recommend you do the same as me and downgrade your linux-zen and linux-zen-headers and run the latest vmware-workstation. Good luck!

I don't have the skills to try to fix this issue (the patch I've added comes from this project: https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules, and I don't understand what it does exactly).

For the moment, I can only suggest to switch to linux-lts until VMware releases a new version which fixes this issue.

Unfortunately its still doesn't work for me, but i have a bit different problem. If i will run vm after upgrade to 17.5.x, my host (notebook) will freeze and only hard reset would be an option.

I tried both kernel versions zen (that i use most of time) and main linux. As workaround i use older version, but would be good to find solution for that issue. Do you have any ideas/suggestions?

I upgraded to the latest vmware-workstation and confirmed that it now works again. Thanks again for all your effort :)

I have the same problem. I've just pushed a patch that seems to fix it.

I also face issue after upgrade kernel to 6.6.1. The host loose network connection. Can't shutdown/reboot the host OS. Using endevourOS.