If you encounter the following error while installing vmware-tools in Fedora:

Searching for a valid kernel header path…

The path “” is not valid.

You will need the following packages installed:

gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel

The trick is that you will need to perform at least two reboots before the vmware installer will actually find the kernel header package. You can verify the kernel install using “rpm -qa kernel*”

1. yum install gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel
2. yum update
3. Reboot (shutdown -r now)
4. Run vmware-install.pl (Ex. /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib)
5. It will probably not find the kernel header path this time around. Cancel the installer if its unable to find it again.
6. Reboot (shutdown -r now)
7. Run …
   

Why install VMWARE Tools?
Improved display support with SVGA driver
Cut and paste from host onto the VMWare guest
Automation of guest operating system commands
Sync time
Shrinking disk space
Startup and shutdown scripts

In order to install VMWARE tools on Debian, you will need to make sure you have the package “linux-headers-[kernel version]” installed.

If not, you will get a prompt during the configuration asking for the path of the C header files.

To find the version of your kernel, type in:
uname -a

It should say something like Linux infomine 2.6.26-2-amd64 (with your current CPU architecture at the end)

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NOTE: Do this at your own risk. If you put the …