Fedora 13 VMware Workstation 6.5.4 and 6.5.5 installation issue solved.

We do have the VMware Workstation 7.1 licensed, but I find that it *really* likes to crash on Fedora 13 a lot! So, tried to roll back to the 6.5.4 version I had downloaded from about a year ago and failed on module build. Here is the generally un-helpful error:

/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c: In function ‘VNetUserListenerEventHandler’:
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:240: error: ‘TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:240: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:240: error: for each function it appears in.)
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c: In function ‘VNetUserListenerRead’:
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:282: error: ‘TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:282: error: implicit declaration of function ‘signal_pending’
/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:282: error: implicit declaration of function ‘schedule’
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.34.8-68.fc13.i686'
make: *** [vmnet.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only'
Unable to install vmnet

First, make sure to have some basic pre-requisites before you start:

yum install gcc gcc-c++ kernel-headers kernel-devel

Modify accordingly if you are running the PAE kernel:

yum install gcc gcc-c++ kernel-headers kernel-PAE-devel

Next install (or update):

rpm -Uhv VMware-Workstation-6.5.5-328052.i386.rpm

You may need to terminate part of the build process.

The hard part was finding the magical google incantation to finally getting me to THIS VERY helpful link and the real solution of:

cd /tmp
tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar -C /tmp
tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmci.tar -C /tmp
perl -pi -e 's,("vnetInt.h"),\1\n#include "compat_sched.h",' vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c
perl -pi -e 's,("compat_page.h"),\1\n#include "compat_sched.h",' vmci-only/include/pgtbl.h
tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar vmnet-only
tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmci.tar vmci-only

Finally run:

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all