You can install all packages in one go with the following line, if you do not want/need the Console package then just remove the last 2 packages name when you run the command:

sudo apt-get install xinetd build-essential linux-headers-2.6.17-10-server libX11-dev libxtst6 xlibs-dev libgtk2.0-0 xauth

This downloads about 38MB of data and on a 8mbit ADSL line it took just about a minute.

When it is done you are ready to get VMWare Server. You can download it from www.vmware.com and you need at LEAST the Server and the MUI package. Both in tar.gz form, NOT as a rpm. Also make sure you run this command:

ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.17-10-server /usr/src/linux

It will make things easier when you accept all the defaults later.

Download the VMWare packages to anywhere on your system and extract them to some directory. I downloaded them to my home directory and uncompressed them there (you can also download the server console if you need/want it. Personally I think X Forwarding over SSH is great):

tar zxvf VMware-server-1.0.2-39867.tar.gz
tar zxvf VMware-mui-1.0.2-39867.tar.gz
tar zxvf VMware-server-console-1.0.2-39867.tar.gz

We will install these “components” in order and if you do not need the console you can skip the last part.
Server Installation:
Go to the server extracted directory and run the installation script as follows:

cd vmware-server-distrib/
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

You can accept all the defaults except when it asks for the linux header files since it needs to compile some modules. Since you made the ln -s earlier (you created a symbolic link) you should be able to just accept the default but if you didn’t you have to enter the path of your header files here.

Step 3: The network configuration.
For testing purposes, we want the NAT and do NOT probe for unused networks, it takes ages. Instead choose one. in my case I chose 10.2.0.0 for NAT and the server will be 10.2.0.1 with a subnetmask of 255.255.255.0. You also want HOST-ONLY networking and for that network I chose 10.3.0.0 with the server being 10.3.0.1 and a subnetmask of 255.255.255.0.
The rest you can accept as it is but make sure you choose a good location for your Virtual Machines. And then enter your serial number (free from VMWare). You should then get something like this:

Starting VMware services:
Virtual machine monitor done
Virtual ethernet done
Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0 done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background) done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background) done
NAT service on /dev/vmnet8 done

The configuration of VMware Server 1.0.2 build-39867 for Linux for this running
kernel completed successfully.
Step4: To install the MUI Management User Interface. We exit the server directory, go to the mui directory and run the install command:

cd ..
cd vmware-mui-distrib/
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Again, you can accept pretty much the defaults. The problem comes in the end. You will get a screen like this:

Generating SSL Server Certificate

Starting httpd.vmware:-ne failed
The configuration of VMware Management Interface completed successfully.

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