{"id":56,"date":"2007-01-03T14:01:14","date_gmt":"2007-01-03T22:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2007-01-03T14:01:14","modified_gmt":"2007-01-03T22:01:14","slug":"vmware-and-upgrading-to-fedora-core-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/vmware-and-upgrading-to-fedora-core-6\/","title":{"rendered":"VMWare and Upgrading to Fedora Core 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

I upgraded my desktop machine at work from Fedora Core 5 to Fedora Core 6, and since I run the free VMWare Player<\/a> (the free VMWare Server<\/a> is also a fine product), I knew I’d have to get it working after the upgrade. It could have been as simple as running ‘vmware-config.pl’, but it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

\nA known issue with Fedora 6 is that on many single processor systems, the
\ninstaller loads an i586 kernel instead of an i686 kernel. The workaround for
\nthis, at install boot-time, is to type “linux i686” — except that it only
\nworks for fresh installs — it doesn’t work for upgrades. An i586 kernel was
\ninstalled even though I wanted an i686 kernel, and it created problems when I
\nwent to configure VMWare. vmware-config.pl compiles a kernel module against
\nkernel headers. I had installed the kernel-devel package to get the kernel
\nheaders. It turns out that I had an i686 kernel-devel package, and it didn’t
\nmesh up well with the i586 kernel that I didn’t know I had.<\/p>\n

\nRun the following command:
\nrpm -q --queryformat '%{ARCH} %{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\\n' kernel kernel-devel<\/code><\/p>\n

\nThis is how I figured out that I had a mismatch. Here’s what I had:
\n
\ni586 kernel-2.6.18-1.2869.fc6
\ni686 kernel-devel-2.6.18-1.2869.fc6
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

\nBoth of those should read ‘i686’. Here are the commands to run (as the ‘root’ user) to resolve the issue:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. yum -y upgrade # to get the latest kernel, etc.<\/code><\/li>\n
  2. Follow the instructions at http:\/\/fedoraproject.org\/wiki\/Bugs\/FC6Common<\/a> to switch to an i686 kernel.<\/li>\n