This will get vmware going on your Debian 5 box.

add “contrib non-free” after “main” to the various lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list file

before running the vmware installer, do some dependency installs: apt-get install gcc g++ make perl psmisc linux-headers-`uname -r`

download from: https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/p/download.php?p=workstation-l. login or register then select your download. I suggest installing via the rpm, in which case: apt-get install alien.

converting the rpm to a deb takes about 15 minutes, but it is easier than installing from a tarball (.tar.gz).
alien --to-deb --scripts [vmware-rpm-name].rpm
after about 1-5 minutes should output a deb file
at which point run the command: dpkg -i [vmware-pkg-name].deb
take another 5-10 minutes to install all the files

start via vmware command, be sure to be connected via vnc or in some sort of X-Window environment.