Uninstalling VMware from SUSE Linux

In some cases you may need to uninstall VMware Workstation from your SUSE Linux system.

Reasons Why You May Want to Uninstall VMware

• You want a "clean" SUSE Linux system before installing other VMware products, versions, or patches. Or just to rid your system completely of a VMware installation.
• You originally installed VMware without using the vmware-any-any patch, and now you find that you cannot apply the vmware-any-any patch.
• You are upgrading to a newer version of VMware Workstation. (There is no way to truly upgrade VMware Workstation. For example, installing VMware 5.5 over VMware 5.0 by using rpm -Uvh vmware-5.5.rpm. VMware states [1] that you must uninstall the old version before installing the new one.)

Uninstall VMware

1. Open a Terminal window

2. Use su to become root

3. Use the following command to determine the name of the currently installed VMware RPM package:

rpm -qf /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware

Example:

macmewes@linux:~> rpm -qf /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware
VMwareWorkstation-e.x.p-16325

4. Use the following command to uninstall the RPM

rpm -e /usr/lib/vmware/bin/{name of the currently installed VMware RPM}

rpm -e VMwareWorkstation-e.x.p-16325

Example:

macmewes@linux:~> rpm -e VMwareWorkstation-e.x.p-16325
Password: <type in root password>

Uninstall from Build

If you installed VMware without the RPM package, uninstall with the python script (simmilar to the installation).

macmewes@linux~> sudo /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall.py
Password:
Uninstalling...
The removal of VMware Workstation 5.5.0 build-16325 for Linux completed
successfully. Thank you for having tried this software.

Now you can reinstall the current version or install the new version

See Also

• How to install VMware 5.0 workstation on SUSE Linux 10.0
• Installing VMware Tools in Unsupported Linux Distributions

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