Getting everything you need on Debian/Ubuntu is very easy:

sudo apt-get install build-essential 

I took an update today on my Ubuntu 22.04 and encountered the error with VMware Workstation 16 Pro 16.2.4 build-20089737 shown in the question here.

GNU C Compiler (gcc) version 12.3.0, was not found. If you installed it in a non-default path you can specify the path below. Otherwise refer to your distribution's documentation for installation instructors and click Refresh to search again in default locations.

I've used VMWare every day since this OS was fresh installed in 2022.

There were three problems to fix:

Missing gcc 12

My gcc --version is 11.4.0. I checked ls /usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-* and version 12 was not there.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/ppa -y
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install g++-12 gcc-12

Then try again.

skb_gso_segment undefined

The build breaks because of gcc header changes. The VMWare build provides a log file like /tmp/vmware-user/vmware_1234.log that shows the compiler error.

This particular function, skb_gso_segment, has moved to a new header that VMWare bridge.c does not #include.

To see for yourself the header where this function is defined, cd /usr/src/linux-hwe-6.5-headers-6.5.0-14/include/net and grep skb_gso_segment *.

To fix VMWare code:

$ sudo su
$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source

# back up original tar file
$ cp vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.original

# change the code
$ tar -xvf vmnet.tar
$ nano vmnet-only/bridge.c

After the #include <linux/netdevice.h>, add

   #include <net/gso.h>

Save and exit. Then rebuild the tar file.

$ tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
$ exit

Then try again.

__pte_offset_map undefined

Next the build fails because a function has changed names. In VMWare Workstation 17, the code in pgtbl.h was changed like this by VMWare:

#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(6,5,0)
            pte_t *pte = pte_offset_kernel(pmd, addr);
#else
            pte_t *pte = pte_offset_map(pmd, addr);
#endif

To fix v16, I made a similar change.

$ sudo su
$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source

# back up original tar file
$ cp vmmon.tar vmmon.tar.original

# change the code
$ tar -xvf vmmon.tar
$ nano vmmon-only/include/pgtbl.h

In the editor, search down to pte_offset_map and change it to pte_offset_kernel.

Save and exit. Then rebuild the tar file.

$ tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
$ exit

Then try again.

This got me back in operation.