VMWare Server on CentOS 5

News Flash! -:- Newer Version of This Guide based on CentOS 5.3 (32/64bit) and VMware Server 1.0.9 Available Here

So you just installed CentOS 5, as your host operating system for the latest version of VMware Server, 1.0.3. However, vmware-config.pl tells you it is missing something.

libXtst.so.6

What is libXtst.so.6? Well, to keep a long story short, libXtst.so.6 is a set of shared libraries that are used by the X Windows system. Although the term X Windows has now been deprecated in place of Xorg, the libraries are still required and still retain the same name.

To install the libraries that you require, just enter the following as root (or you could use sudo if you have it set up nicely):

yum -y install libX11-devel libXtst

Once you have those two and their dependencies installed, vmware will no longer complain about missing components, but you may come across another problem.

VMware requires GCC to be installed, so that it can compile a kernel module and run happily each day forever until the sun goes down. As root, type the following:

yum -y install gcc

OK, so now you have GCC installed. If VMware complains about how it can’t find your “C Header Files”, you may need to do the following, as root:

yum -y install kernel-headers kernel-devel

Now, some people will argue that you just need one, and not the other. In my opinion, just get both. That way when you install something else that needs the other later on, you will already have it! Besides, it’s not like you are giving up gigabytes of space, it’s just a few megabytes.

Lastly, VMware will probably look for your C Header files in the following location:

/usr/src/linux/include

Unfortunately, it won’t be there. As root, type the following:

mkdir /usr/src/linux

cd /usr/src/linux

ln -s /lib/modules/<your current running kernel>/build/include include

Run the setup one last time, and hopefully everything will be fine! Don’t forget to add your selected remote access port to your firewall!

If anyone requires any further assistance, feel free to post a comment here and let me know!

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