Install prerequisites VMware Tools for LinuxOS:
If you have RHEL/CentOS:
yum install perl gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel -y
If you have Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-server build-essential
- build-essential, also install: dpkg-dev, g++, gcc, lib6-dev, libc-dev, make
Extracted from: http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/01/vmware-tools-linux-instalar-requisitos.html