Black screen upon fresh boot in VMWare

Support Virtualization
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1

Hello, I’m relatively new to Linux but have a little bit of experience with it.
I recently downloaded the image for Manjaro KDE Plasma, to use with a VMWare Virtual Machine, however when I configure the VM and run it, it will allow me to go through the standard boot-up process, selecting either proprietary or open-source graphics drivers.
None of these options work, as when I select either of these, the screen will go black, and then nothing will happen.

If this helps, I am using the following:

AMD Ryzen 7 7730U with Radeon Graphics
    Radeon Integrated Graphics (Obviously)
    VMWare Workstation Pro 17

The host device is a Lenovo Thinkpad E16 Gen 1.

3

VMware as a platform to run Manjaro is unsupported.

VMware is a commecial product targeted a short list of operating systems.

Please search the forum - there has been several topics recently on VMware.

4

Yeah, we know it’s unsupported as it’s from AUR, but that doesn’t stop you or anyone else trying to suggest a means of fixing issues surrounding it.

Eg, I’ve recently upgraded the kernel from linux61 to linux66, It worked fine with the former, but no longer with the latter kernel, giving an error:

Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory. Please make sure that the kernel module, ‘vmmon’ is loaded.

Now with Linux61, I see this module in /dev/vmmon, but sure enough it’s absent with Linux66. So the question is how does one load it? I’m fairly sure this is something to do with dkms, as I know this command plays a role whenever vmware itself is upgraded or rebuilt, but I don’t know how I’d use this command here.

5

And you are correct.

My guess is that you didn’t install kernel headers when you added linux66.

When you are using dkms - it is imperative that you remember the headers package when adding a kernel.

This is handled automagically when you use mhwd-kernel script to add the kernel - otherwise you need to add headers manually

sudo pacman -Syu linux66-headers
6

Actually they’re already installed.

sudo pacman -Ss linux66-headers

core/linux66-headers 6.6.7-1 [installed]
    Header files and scripts for building modules for Linux66 kernel
7

Then you will have to use linux61 until vmware catch up with the recent kernels.

  • perhaps it is a host issue
  • perhaps it is a damaged iso

Let me take a custom build of vmware for a ride - see what turns up.

EDIT:
Using a Manjaro host system on Linux 6.6 (Linux 6.7 RC fails)
Build vmware-workstation from AUR
Using the ISO labeled manjaro-kde-23.1.0-minimal-231214-linux66.iso
Creating a VM with

  • 2 CPU
  • 4G RAM

Yes - the screen goes black - but have some patience and it will boot

 $ inxi -SM
System:
  Host: manjaro Kernel: 6.6.7-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64
    Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.10 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
  Type: Vmware System: VMware product: VMware Virtual Platform v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Intel model: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
    serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Phoenix v: 6.00 date: 11/12/2020
8

Yes. An update to Linux headers (linux66-headers) came through today. Vmware now working as normal. It’s not the first time this has happened, and I was wondering why the header libraries could not have included the necessary vmware drivers the first time round.

Still, I’ll know in future what to expect with a new kernel upgrade. :wink: