Problems installing VMWare on Manjaro 21.1.5

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1

I’m facing problems installing VMWare 16.2 on Manjaro 21.1 and I’ve faced the same problem on both Gnome and KDE. Before I explain the problem, I want you to know that I’ve tried so many different approaches and none of them worked. The problem I’m going to explain belongs to an AUR which is the most straightforward one. Others approached failed as well but they each failed differently.

These are the different links I’ve tried:

https://computingforgeeks.com/install-vmware-workstation-on-arch-linux-manjaro/
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/VMware

There were some other links as well that I cannot find them anymore.

But this is the easiest way to install VMWare (and fail):

$ sudo pamac build vmware-workstation

It will go on for some time and then it will finish without any errors. As part of the text it prompts, it says that you have to execute some more commands, including:

$ sudo modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon
$ sudo systemctl enable  vmware-networks vmware-usbarbitrator
$ sudo systemctl start  vmware-networks vmware-usbarbitrator

Then, once all is done, I tried to run the application:

$ vmplayer
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/etc/vmware/hostd/proxy.xml"

As you can see, it prompts a warning (shown above) which I believe is fine since the application runs just fine. But then when I try to start a VM:

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0: missing action removable-device-0

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1: missing action removable-device-1

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2: missing action removable-device-2

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-3: missing action removable-device-3

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0-choose-image: missing action removable-device-0-choose-image

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0-edit: missing action removable-device-0-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-connect: missing action removable-device-1-connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-bridged: missing action removable-device-1-nic-bridged

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-nat: missing action removable-device-1-nic-nat

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-host-only: missing action removable-device-1-nic-host-only

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-edit: missing action removable-device-1-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2connect: missing action removable-device-2connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2-edit: missing action removable-device-2-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-3connect: missing action removable-device-3connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-3-edit: missing action removable-device-3-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0: missing action removable-device-0

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1: missing action removable-device-1

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2: missing action removable-device-2

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-3: missing action removable-device-3

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0-choose-image: missing action removable-device-0-choose-image

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-0-edit: missing action removable-device-0-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-connect: missing action removable-device-1-connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-bridged: missing action removable-device-1-nic-bridged

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-nat: missing action removable-device-1-nic-nat

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-nic-host-only: missing action removable-device-1-nic-host-only

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-1-edit: missing action removable-device-1-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2connect: missing action removable-device-2connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-2-edit: missing action removable-device-2-edit

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.674: removable-device-3connect: missing action removable-device-3connect

(vmplayer:12406): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:51:04.675: removable-device-3-edit: missing action removable-device-3-edit

And then the application exits without any trace. I’m pretty sure these final warnings are also irrelevant to the actual problem. Which means, it prompts no error on the actual issue.

As I mentioned before, this is a brand new Manjaro 21.1.5 with kernel 5.14.10-1. I’ve also had the same problem with kernel 5.10.70-1.

Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

[UPDATE]

I forgot to mention that I had installed kernels headers as well:

$ pacman -Q | grep headers
linux-api-headers 5.12.3-1
linux514-headers 5.14.10-1
2

The AUR is the maintainer/your responsibility.
Among the first things to do when working with the AUR is to look over the PKGBUILD, etc.

The page for this particular package is here:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/vmware-workstation/

On which there are both recent and pinned comments.
As you did not reference any similar steps I am going to guess you should start there.
(…headers?)

1 Like
3

Thanks for the quick reply. Even though I confess I had not seen that page, but it doesn’t chagne anything. I knew that I needed to install kernel headers and it was already installed. I just had forgotten to mention it in my question. Now it does.

The funny thing is that I have installed the same version on my other machine without any issues but that one is running an older version of Manjaro (a couple of years old) with kernel 5.10.70-1.

4

For anyone else who might be struggling with such a problem:

Make sure the CPU Virtualization in your Computer’s BIOS is enabled!

For me that solved the issue.

5

Please remember that Arch based distributions are unsupported by VMware.

You should always use a supported platform when using VMware products.

6

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