Prefer VMware Player to Oracle VirtualBox? Well, this quick tutorial will show you how to install the VMware Player 6 in Ubuntu 14.10.

VMware Player is one of the best virtualization software for Linux that allows you to run another operating system inside the current OS. It’s free for non-commercial use.

1. To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and run to install required build package and kernel headers:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

2. Click on this link to go to the official download page and select downloading the VMware Player for Linux 32-bit / 64-bit.

You may check your OS type, 32-bit or 64-bit, by clicking on the option “About This Computer” from shutdown menu (top-right corner gear button).

3. Once the downloading process finished. Make the package executable by:

1. Open file browser and navigate to Downloads folder.
2. Right-click on the VMware Player package and select Properties.
3. Under Permissions tab, check the box that says “allow executing file as program”

4. Finally in a terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T) run below command to bring up VMware Player installer wizard:

gksudo bash ~/Downloads/VMware-Player-*.bundle

Follow the wizard. When done, open VMware Player from the Unity Dash or menu and enjoy!

The VMware Player 6.0 has been released with many improvements. This tutorial shows what’s new in this release and how to install it in Ubuntu & Linux Mint.

• With this release VMware is introducing a commercial version of VMware Player called VMware Player 6 Plus. A license key for VMware Player can be purchased from the VMware online store.

  

• The installation has been enhanced with configuration settings to allow unattended installation of VMware Player using enterprise software configuration management tools.
• VMware Player 6 includes a Simplified UI mode that can be set to hide menu items in virtual machines.
• Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows Server 2012 R2, Ubuntu 13.10 and the latest Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat and OpenSUSE releases.
• VMware has enhanced the capabilities of Restricted Virtual Machines to include the ability to expire on a specified date and time.
• This version of VMware Player includes VMware hardware Version 10.

Install WMware Player 6 in Ubuntu Linux

First download the package from the official download page. You may check os type 32-bit or 64-bit by System Settings -> Details.

Then rename the download package from VMware-Player-6.0.0-1295980.xxx.txt to VMware-Player-6.0.0-1295980.xxx.bundle.

Right click on the file and go to its Properties window. Check “Allow executing file as program” at Permissions tab.

Finally open terminal by Ctrl+Alt+T and execute command to start the installation:

cd Downloads && sudo ./VMware-Player-6.0.0-*.bundle