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

There is an (minor) issue that the process vmware-clk is eating up 10 % CPU all the time. This has been discussed in the vmware forum: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Workstation-17-5-0-vmware-clk-spinning-on-CPU-when-Linux-VMs-are/m-p/2996282#M183854 A fix is shown in that forum. It works fine for me. And the patch is very small.

@jihem: You may want to add this patch to the PKGBUILD. I have done this for myself and can share with you if you want.

I updated yesterday and since the update I've been experiencing many issues with connections to remote VMs. The windows are getting cut off and the transition between them is slow. My vmware version is 17.5.1-1, kernel 6.8.4.arch1-1 and video card nvidia. Does anyone have the same issue?

Sorry, this is fixed.

checksum failed for vmmon.patch and vmnet.patch

56519232870055e6cacd62bc830127cbbdc30554c4ffffa381c8c108b50f739f vmmon.patch

4332a189c79ce15fa4d59dc45cffc78f42f48cfbb059b5eeafbb43a9cac835ba vmnet.patch

@sand7000 actually, I don't have to add debugedit as dependency, because it is included in the group base-devel which is required to install before building any package from AUR.

However, it is asked to install debugedit because vmware-workstation is built with the option debug, which is irrelevant for packages that don't compile anything. So, I have updated the PKGBUILD to remove the debug option.

Seems to be missing a required build dependency. I see the error:

==> ERROR: Cannot find the debugedit binary required for including source files in debug packages.

Installing:

https://archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/debugedit/

resolved the issue.

jihem, I understand your concerns. Choice is your to make, thanks for the response :)

Hi Alex, it's an interesting idea but I hesitate to implement it; there are pros and cons.

The advantages are: a little bit less work for me as a maintainer (no need to care about kernel updates) and, as you said, users will have to rebuild this big package less often.

The drawbacks I can see are:

• users will have to rebuild your package manually after each problematic kernel update (I guess I will have messages from newbies asking me to fix my package because they don't understand what is broken); currently I handle everything and they just have to let their AUR helper rebuild the package when necessary
• I will probably have complaints of people that don't want to depend of an unofficial/untrusted project (which is totally legitimate, even if I personally trust this project and often import from it the minimum patches required to make VMware work on newer kernels)

For the moment, I don't think I will add the dependency to your package (I think the drawbacks are superior to the advantages), but if I change my mind I will let you know.

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:(