How To Easily Install VMWare Workstation On Arch Linux

How To Easily Install VMWare Workstation On Arch Linux In 2022

A virtualization solution on your system can be extremely useful, whether for running Windows, testing other Linux distributions or running services on separate server instances. Here’s how you can get VMWare Workstation up and running on your Arch Linux system quickly and easily.

These are the steps required to install VMWare Workstation in Arch Linux:

1. Clone the AUR Package
2. Build & Install the AUR Package
3. Enable the Networking Service & Restart the Machine
4. Run VMWare Workstation & Complete the Initial Setup

Note: These steps were tested and verified working on a fresh installation of Arch Linux with the GNOME desktop environment installed. As many system configurations are different, your mileage may vary and there may be extra dependencies or configurations needed for your particular setup.

1. Clone the AUR Package

If you’re unfamiliar with the Arch User Repository (AUR), it’s a community-driven repository for packages outside the official Arch repositories. The AUR contains a number of VMWare-related packages, but the one we need today is the vmware-workstationpackage. Navigate to the package page and click the Git Clone URL to copy it to your clipboard.

Before cloning the package to your machine make sure you have the git and base-develpackages installed:

$ sudo pacman -Sy base-devel git

Paste the Git Clone URL we copied earlier and use it to clone the repository into a directory on your Arch Linux machine:

$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/vmware-workstation.git

2. Build & Install the AUR Package

Navigate into the repository you just cloned and ensure the PKGBUILD file exists. While in that directory, run the following command to build the package:

$ makepkg

This command may fail due to missing dependencies, if so, install those dependencies using pacman and try makepkg again. (You may be required to install the vmware-keymaps package which is only available on the AUR. Simply follow the same steps we are here to install the package from the AUR and continue with the main installation after)

If the package was built successfully you should see an output similar to the following:

Once the makepkg operation completes you can proceed to install the package you’ve just built. Before installing make sure you have the latest kernel headers installed:

$ sudo pacman -Sy linux-headers

Substitute {package} with the .pkg.tar.zst file that was created in the same directory by the makepkg process:

$ sudo pacman -U {package}

3. Enable the VMWare Services & Restart the Machine

If you need to have networking capabilities and be able to connect USB devices to your virtual machines, enable the networking and USB Arbitration services:

$ sudo systemctl enable vmware-networks
$ sudo systemctl enable vmware-usbarbitrator

Finally, reboot the machine.

4. Run VMWare Workstation & Complete the Initial Setup

Once you’re logged back in open your applications menu and launch the VMWare Workstation shortcut. You should now be presented with the traditional VMWare setup screen:

Complete the setup wizard and you should be presented with the VMWare Workstation Home screen.

That’s it! You’re ready to go running your virtual machines. If you have any issues following these steps leave a comment and I’ll try my best to help.

Refer: https://linuxreboot.com/how-to-easily-install-vmware-workstation-on-arch-linux-in-2022/