How to Install VMware Workstation Player on Ubuntu 22.04

Welcome fellow geeks to another Linux tutorial. But before we dive into the installation process. Let us start by defining what is VMWare Workstation and the features it offers.

In this tutorial, we are goign to show you how to install VMWare Workstaion on Ubuntu 22.04. This will allow you to create and import virtual machines for use on your host machine.

VMware Workstation is a virtualization application that allows us to run multiple operating systems concurrently on a single physical machine.

It is developed by VMware, Inc and is considered one of the most powerful and feature rich virtualization software. The following are some features and workings of VMWare

• Hypervisor Technology - VMware Workstation utilizes a type-2 hypervisor, which means it runs on top of an existing host operating system (OS).
• Guest Operating Systems - VMware allos us to run virtual machines (VMs) within VMware Workstation. These VMs act as self-contained computers with their own virtual hardware, including CPU, RAM, storage, and network interfaces.
• Hardware Virtualization Support - VMware Workstation takes advantage of hardware virtualization extensions provided by modern CPUs (such as Intel VT-x and AMD-V) to improve the performance and efficiency of virtualization.
• Snapshotting - VMware Workstation provides a snapshot feature that allows you to capture the current state of a VM at a particular moment.
• Virtual Networking - VMware Workstation offers advanced networking features, including the ability to create complex virtual networks.
• 3D Graphics Support - VMware Workstation includes support for 3D graphics acceleration in VMs, allowing for the execution of graphics-intensive apps.

The above ares some of the features and capabilities of VMWare.

Requirements

• A compatible 64-bit x86/AMD64 CPU launched in 2011 or later *
• 1.3GHz or faster core speed
• 2GB RAM minimum/ 4GB RAM or more recommended.
• GNU/Linux with vmwgfx.

Installing VMWare Workstation Player on Ubuntu

Once we have all the system requirements met, we can go ahead and install VMware on Ubuntu.

Start by updating the system packages:

sudo apt-get update

Next, install the build requirements and headers as shown in the command below:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic

Once you have all the tools installed, open your browser and head over to the VMware Player download page:

https://www.vmware.com/content/vmware/vmware-published-sites/us/products/workstation-player.html.html

Locate the Linux download option and select the provided download link. At the time of writing this post, you should have VMware version 17.0.2.

Once donwloaded, open the terminal and set the downloaded file as an executable.

chmod +x VMware-Player-Full-17.0.2-21581411.x86_64.bundle 

Run the installer from the terminal and follow the installer instructions. You can run the command:

sudo ./VMware-Player-Full-17.0.2-21581411.x86_64.bundle --required --eulas-agreed

The command above should start the installation process and prompt you for the necessary questions.

Extracting VMware Installer...done.
Installing VMware Player 17.0.2
    Configuring...
[######################################################################] 100%
Installation was successful.

Once the installation is complete, you can use the Ubuntu activity menu to search and launch the VMware player instance.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to download and install the VMware Workstation player on Ubuntu in very easy steps.