Prerequisites: clean Debian 5 installation (preferably from netinstall disc) on at least 1GHZ/512MB RAM, reliable Internet connection

I did the install over SSH, so that I don’t have to stand in front of my server rack. This experiment was conducted for a vmware server based virtual private server venture that I may be going in on with George Sawyer. He needed quickly deployable web environments for the classes he teaches.

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apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` libx11-6 libx11-dev x-window-system-core x-window-system xspecs libxtst6 psmisc build-essential xinetd gcc-4.1 g++-4.1
ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 /usr/bin/gcc
wget http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmserver/VMware-server-1.0.9-156507.tar.gz
tar xzvf VMware-server-1.0.9-156507.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl
[ !-- follow the instructions. the defaults should be just fine. --! ]
cd ..
wget http://vraidsys.com/software/vmware-update-2.6.26-5.5.7.tgz.gz
tar -xzvf vmware-update-2.6.26-5.5.7.tgz.gz
cd vmware-update-2.6.26-5.5.7
./runme.pl
[ !-- follow the instructions. the defaults should be just fine. --! ]
cd ..
rm -fdr /tmp/*
rm -fdr vmware*
rm -fdr VMware*
shutdown -r now

Edited July 30, 2009

Here is what just happened:
1) all the dependencies were installed first
2) then a system link was created so that the old version of gcc is used that is compatible with the kernel headers
3) the vmware server software is downloaded and installed.
4) you should reach a point in the installation where the process errors out installing the vmmon module.
5) use the patcher to override some dependency stuffs that can’t be fixed.
6) once the process is done, remove the installation files, and then restart the system to free up the memory used by the installation procedure.