I spent a lot of time figuring out how to get vmware with the vmmon and vmnet kernel modules installed, because it only supports Fedora 40 with Kernel version 6.10.10-200. I tried downgrading to that kernel but that didn’t work, because kernel-headers-6.10.10-200.fc40.x86_64 couldn’t be installed. mkubecek/vmware-host-modules didn’t work either, but gleb-kun made some patches to it (thanks).
So anyway just in case anyone finds this useful who also has no idea about this stuff:
To use 17.5.1:
-
download VMware from https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/vmw-desktop/ws/17.5.1/23298084/linux/core/
-
extract it, make it executable, run it as sudo
-
it should be installed now but don’t try to use it yet
-
download the modules
wget https://github.com/gleb-kun/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-17.5.1.tar.gz -
extract it
-
cd into the folder
-
sudo make -
sudo make install -
restart your device
-
now you can run VMware hopefully
To use 17.6.1 (or later, this worked for me even for 17.6.3):
-
Sign up to Broadcom and download VMware
-
extract it, make it executable, run it as sudo
-
it should be installed now but don’t try to use it yet
-
download the modules:
wget https://github.com/gleb-kun/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-17.6.1.tar.gz -
extract it
-
cd into the folder
-
sudo make -
sudo make install -
restart your device
(Note: Even though I know QEMU emulators like Boxes or virt-manager would have been easier, I have to use VMware and this is meant for others who are similarly unfortunate )
I came into this expecting Selinux or firewald to be the issue.