I have been running EndeavourOS on VMware Workstation Pro since Feb 2024 and all has been well until recently. After a particular pacman update, the Xorg always crashes every time since that update. Please help me to fix this problem.
On my system, Xorg is started by lightdm; the /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log is here. But I think the /var/log/Xorg.0.log may contain more useful clues. And I think the tail end of dmesg shows the call trace of the crash of Xorg.
Other info:
I am using VMware Workstation Pro version 17.6.4 build-24832109 on Microsoft WIndows 11. The “Accelerate 3D graphics” is disabled.
The kernel is 6.12.40-1-lts.
The packages versions are
xorg-server @ 21.1.18-2
xf86-video-vmware @ 13.4.0-4
xf86-input-vmmouse @ 13.2.0-2
glibc @ 2.41+r65+ge7c419a29575-1
libdrm @ 2.4.125-1
mesa @ 1:25.1.6-1
“pacman -Qi” on xf86-video-vmware and xf86-input-vmmouse shows the 2 packages were installed (updated?) on 7 Jun 2025, around the time this problem appeared. I don’t know how to rollback xf86-video-vmware because I can’t find details via “pacman -Ss” nor find it on Arch Linux Package Search
I notice a strange thing. Although “ps -ef | grep /usr/lib/Xorg” shows that the x-server is not running, the VMware window is mostly black, except for a cursor that moves in tandem with the mouse. The cursor shape is an arrow around the 4 edges, but changes to the hand shape within an inner rectangle, which I believe to be 640 by 480.
Lastly, I am unable to get a virtual console with “Ctrl + Alt + Fn”.
Please let me know if you need more info. Thank you.
What DE are you running? If Cinnamon, then try enabling 3D acceleration. I’d also try the stock Arch kernel.
If these suggestions don’t help, it might be helpful to switch to Virtualbox or Hyper-V. I used to run a Windows 11 system exclusively, with all of my Linux distros in VMware VMs. But I had to scrap that because of endless annoying bugs. On Linux, VMware Workstation is much better, IMO.
If I were to remove xf86-video-vmware, what driver would be used instead? The VMware Workstation is a Microsoft GUI application on my system. To the guest Endeavour OS running inside it, what graphics device does it detect if the xf86-video-vmware driver is not installed?
The choice of DE does not matter; like I said earlier, it hasn’t reached that stage. I may have more than 1 DE installed (see How to install Desktop Environments next to your existing ones) and select the session DE during login. But there is no login screen.
You’re not understanding what I’m asking. When you installed EOS, you were presented a list of desktop environments. Which one did you choose? I completely understand your situation when lightdm doesn’t start; I use Xfce and it uses lightdm by default. And yes, the choice of DE does matter. Cinnamon is more prone to errors like this as compared to Xfce.
Now, did you give any consideration to trying one of the alternate VM host software options I suggested? Virtualbox is much easier to get up and running than either VMware (which I like better) or Hyper-V (which I like best).
Ok, I installed Cinnamon. I have also installed Mate. My default DE is Cinnamon, and on my last successful login via LightDM, the session DE was Cinnamon. But, why did Cinnamon kill Xorg? There is no mention of cinnamon in the backtrace in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. How does enabling 3D acceleration prevent Xorg from crashing?
I have been using vmware successfully on both Windows and Linux for a long time. So, why now? Furthermore, can I migrate my existing vmware image that is installed with EndeavourOS to VirtualBox or Hyper-V? When VirtualBox starts up my vmware image, will the xf86-video-vmware driver still work, or will VirtualBox load in a different driver module?
VB can usually import a VMware image, but sometimes VMs installed with UEFI can be a little tricky to import. When you setup the imported VM on Virtualbox, you’ll be able to select a different vGPU driver, so the xf86-video-vmware should not matter. although your screen resolution might be messed up until you install the proper driver.
I wish I could help more, but I haven’t ran any VMs in about 4 months now (switched to multi-boot with systems running on real hardware) and was using KVM/QEMU then (Linux host).
Thank you for this suggestion; it works. The solution is sudo pacman -R xf86-video-vmware.
I also want to apologise to you. I thought your suggestion was wrong because I thought that xf86-video-vmware is the only graphics card driver for a linux system running inside a vmware virtual machine. I was afraid to try out your suggestion because the package is no longer in the ArchLinux repo. However, when I found that it is available in AUR, I decided to take the plunge and I am glad I took it. According to /var/log/Xorg.0.log, the system loads the modesetting driver. Again, thank you very much.