VMware player on Fedora 5

Download and install the VMware Player, i have used the 2.0 for this:
# rpm -Uvh VMware-player-2.0.0-45731.i386.rpm

Now if we try to execute the player, we will get something like this:

# vmplayer
vmware is installed, but it has not been (correctly) configured for this system. To (re-)configure it, invoke the following command: /usr/bin/vmare-config.pl.

This is requering us to execute the configuration script /usr/bin/vmare-config.pl. This is a wizard were ask us for paths, i chose the default for all the questions.

# /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl
Making sure services for VMware Player are stopped.
Stopping VMware services: Virtual machine monitor [ OK ]
Configuring fallback GTK+ 2.4 libraries.

In which directory do you want to install the theme icons? [/usr/share/icons] ...

In some point the script ask us to build the vmmon modules so we answer 'yes'

None of the pre-built vmmon modules for VMware Player is suitable for your running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

After this the wizard ask us for the kernel sources path:

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]

If we do not have the kernel source, we will have to install it. So we left the wizard and install the sources:
# yum install kernel-devel
So far so good, for me yum installed the sources in /usr/src/kernels/2.6.20-1.2319.fc5-i686 the headers that the wizard ask us are in include directory. Now we pass this full path to the wizard and get:

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] /usr/src/kernels/2.6.20-1.2319.fc5-i686/include

Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.

Building the vmmon module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system. make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only' make -C /usr/src/kernels/2.6.20-1.2925.fc6-i586/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.20-1.2925.fc6-i586'
...
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.20-1.2925.fc6-i586' make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2 make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.
For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please visit our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/download/modules/modules.html" and "http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/prebuilt_modules_linux.html".

Execution aborted.

Damn, what went wrong? After some googling you find out that the script requires the specific sources for your running kernel, yum installed the last sources. So how to know what source to install? well:

# uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 ...
# uname -p
i686

The above tell us that we need the sources for the kernel version 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 and the platform i686. Once we get the right sources, remove the earlier and install the right one:

# rpm -qa kernel-devel*
kernel-devel-2.6.20-1.2319.fc5
# rpm -e kernel-devel-2.6.20-1.2319.fc5
# rpm -i kernel-devel-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.i686.rpm

Finally we start again the script and pass the new path:

# /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl
...
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running kernel? [/lib/modules/2.6.15-1.2054_FC5/build/include] /usr/src/kernels/2.6.15-1.2054_FC5-i686/include
...
...
The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.
...

After building the module successfully, the wizard will ask for other options, i agree with the defaults and all worked smoothly.

Sources

VMware on Fedora Core 5
VMware Server On A Fedora Core 6