Installing Parallels Workstation 2.1 on Mepis 6.0

I'm using Parallels in 6.0 and simply installed the headers via Synaptic and nothing else to do after Synaptic installed them. It is necessary to end up with both of these folders in /usr/src .
linux-headers-2.6.15-26
linux-headers-2.6.15-26-386

Wayne

After you make sure the headers are installed with synaptic and if you still get errors with the configuration let me know what it says. I think l may have had a similar problem that l obviously found a solution to but my memory is only good on the short term. But l am using Parallels with XP installed.

Wayne

I am trying to think but there is a package called just linux-kernel-headers with no numbers after it and if you highlight it, it will describe it as: "Linux Kernel Headers for development-This package provides headers from the Linux kernel.These headers are used by the installed headers for GNU glibc and other system libraries".
Anyway this package is installed on my system so it can't hurt to install it on yours if it isn't already installed.

Wayne

/usr/src/linux is actually a symlink, to your latest kernel resources.
so you download your resources whether headers or full source, and it goes in a directory of its own.
The one you want to use is then symlinked to /usr/src/linux like this

ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-i386-123-x.s.p /usr/src/linux

so while you thought you had two copies on your drive, there was really only one.
when you want to upgrade you remove the symlink
rm /usr/src/linux
download and untar / unzip the new version, and then symlink it to /usr/src/linux
and then compile your kernel and modules.

Thank you for the advice, but I had already got past the steps that you suggest. I thought that I would document what I have done in details and with comments. What follows is a draft set of instructions that I will post as a how-to once it works.

Preliminaries:

1. Download and install the package "linux-headers-2.6.15-26" using Synaptic. The headers are placed in /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-26.

[Note: At the moment I think that it is sufficient to have only the linux header files installed. If it is necessary to install the main linux source package, then note that this is a tar bzip file that has to be extracted before it can be used.]

2. Ensure that you have the following packages installed;

glibc, gcc, libtool, libxxf86vm, libxkbfile, xkbutils, libqt3-mt

[Note: these appear to be standard in almost any Mepis installation and they pull in a variety of associated libraries.]

Main steps:

1. Download and install (using Kpackage) the Parallels Workstation deb package. This puts most of its files in /usr/lib/parallels and its subdirectories.

2. Start up the terminal and use su to logon as a superuser and create a new directory linux in /usr/src with the contents of the header files.

su
cd /usr/src
mkdir
cp -fr /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.15-26/* /usr/src/linux

[Note: Frankly this is complete overkill - to create an actual copy of the header files in the new linux. The problem is that I have not found a way of creating a symbolic link that works reliably and parallels-config is very literal about expecting to find files in /usr/src/linux.]

3. Copy the configuration file for the current kernel to the sources directory and make the necessary targets to configure the source corresponding to the current kernel

cd /usr/src/linux
cp /boot/config-2.6.15-26-386 /usr/src/linux/.config
make oldconfig
make prepare-all

4. Now run the Parallels-config command

parallels-config

This is where things go wrong. The message says:

"Can not compile and/or link drivers. Read /usr/lib/parallels/doc/INSTALL
and follow instructions specified in this document.

Configuration and compilation log is available at /usr/lib/parallels/comp.log.31587.error"

The doc file is of no assistance. More or less it tells one to report the error to the Parallels helpdesk. The log file is the usual huge listing of steps. I believe that the key message (from reading other people's efforts to install Parallels) is in the following section:

Making all in hypervisor
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/lib/parallels/drivers/hypervisor'
make -C /usr/src/linux SUBDIRS=/usr/lib/parallels/drivers/hypervisor SRCROOT=/usr/lib/parallels/drivers/hypervisor modules && mv -f hypervisor.ko hypervisor.o
make[3]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux'

WARNING: Symbol version dump /usr/src/linux/Module.symvers
is missing; modules will have no dependencies and modversions.

CC [M] /usr/lib/parallels/drivers/hypervisor/hypmain.o
/bin/sh: @OBJDUMP@: command not found

It is the failure to find Module.symvers that causes all of the rest of the problems. This file is created if you perform a complete compilation of the kernel. Some distributions provide a copy of the file as part of the distribution. Perhaps Mepis does but I don't know where and in what form. Under SUSE the instructions locate a gzip file in /boot that has to be moved to /usr/src/linux, unzipped and prepared using make as in:

cp /boot/symvers-xxxx.gz /usr/src/linux
mv symvers-xxxx-gz Module.symvers.gz
gunzip /usr/src/linux/Module.symvers.gz
make modules_prepare

After this I was able to get the parallels-config program to work successfully in SUSE.

Hence my question is where is the symvers file? Or, alternatively, is the answer that it is necessary to compile the kernel completely from source in order to create this file? If so, my response would be to abandon the effort and give up on trying to install Parallels in Mepis. That means either trying VMware or returning to SUSE permanently. [My reason for considering a switch from SUSE is that not everything works in the SUSE installation of Parallels - there is an apparently insoluble problem with managing USB devices which prevents me from using my printer/scanner other than as a network device.]

My apologies for the lengthy post.

GAH

Mepis is NOT SuSe! I tried SuSe not long ago and it was too complicated for me. Forget about Symvers here in Mepis and forget about installing the headers from scource because you don't have to ... it just complicates things like l found SuSe just complicates things. This is called Simply Mepis for a reason and that is why l have been here for a couple of years. Forget about trying to do things in Mepis, which is a Debian based distro, like you did them in SuSe. I am not a techie but l was able to simply install Parallels in Mepis without all of the complication you are trying to do.

Wayne

i had this working on this laptop on a 2.6.7 kernel, but broke my modem drivers in the process.
So I installed 6.0, modem works, and I am going in concentric circles trying to get parallels 2.2 to compile.
it's looking for /lib/modules/2.6.15-26-386/build
and it doesn't exist.
I've tried building a kernel to cover all the odds and ends, but not even that will create this directory.
If I just create the directory, then this is the error

Did you install these two packages using synaptics?

linux-headers-2.6.15-26
linux-headers-2.6.15-26-386

Wayne

I also found the latest version a bit flaky so l use Parallels-2.2.2072.lin.deb:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/parallels/?branch_id=63033&release_id=236889

Wayne

and the linux-source
and fiddled around
i've logged a request with parallels as I'm a paying customer and will let you know how useful the answer is

My build directory is 568B . If you want me to email you the directory l will gladly do that for you if you think it would work ... worth a try! Send me your email if you want it. Make sure you put Linux in the subject line or l might inadvertently delete it.

Wayne