These steps worked for me for vmware-workstation-6.0.4.93057 installed with a normal emerge. 1. Copy vmware-modules-1.0.0.20.ebuild.patch to portage subdirectory /app-emulation/vmware-modules/ 2. Copy vmblock-2.6.26.patch, vmmon-2.6.26.patch and vmnet-2.6.26 to /app-emulation/vmware-modules/files/patches/ 3. cd to ... /app-emulation/vmware-modules/ 4. patch < vmware-modules-1.0.0.20.ebuild.patch 5. ebuild vmware-modules-1.0.0.20.ebuild manifest 6. emerge -av vmware-modules 7. load the modules: modprobe vmblock modprobe vmnet modprobe vmmon 8. Run vmware-config.pl (I find that a reboot is needed after this ). 9. Below is the script I use to start vmware-workstation. ie load the modules before run /etc/init.d/vmware start #------------------------------------------snip #! /bin/sh sudo modprobe vmblock sudo modprobe vmnet sudo modprobe vmmon sudo /etc/init.d/vmware start VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=force vmware #------------------------------------------snip P.S. Dont forget to compile the kernel with CONFIG_UNUSED_SYMBOLS = "y" to take care of the init_mm bug.