This post was originally published on go2linux.org, a Linux blog I ran from 2007 to 2011. The domain is no longer mine, but I am the original author. I am republishing it here on garron.me with corrections and improvements.
To install VMware server on Debian Etch (4.0) you first need to have Etch installed on you host PC, you can achieve this by using the netinst CD available at:
Once you have it installed you can proceed with this How To install VMware server on Debian Etch
1.- First install some software needed (as root)
apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxtst6 xinetd wget
apt-get install linux-headers-uname -r build-essential
apt-get install binutils-doc make manpages-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb libc6-dev-amd64 lib64gcc1 gcc-2.95-doc
apt-get install gcc
2.- Get the Software
You can download VMware server here. And do not forget to obtain the serial number by registering here
3.- Installation
You can use wget, to get the appropiate code, or any mean you prefer, once you have the .tar.gz file.
tar xvzf [package_downloaded]
cd vmware-server-distrib ./vmware-install.pl
4.- Patching the software
As Etch has a newer version of Kernel the VMware server needs to be patched, here is how.
Get the vmware patch
Unpack it:
tar xvzf vwmare-any-any-update108.tar.gz
Change to its directory
cd vwmare-any-any-update108
Run the script that is going to patch the VMWare.
./runme.pl
5.- Automatic start vmware at start
update-rc.d vmware defaults 20