Comment 26 for bug 1715552

To successfully install VMware Workstation 12.5.9 (and probably 14.x also) in Ubuntu 18.04, follow this procedure:
1. Do the normal installation of VMWare Workstation. Do not run vmware yet. It will fail anyway.
2. Do a git clone (or download as zip package) of the vmware-host-modules project hosted in https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules. Make sure to read the README to understand what branch you need to checkout. Detailed instructions for doing this is in the INSTALL document. For example: If you are installing Workstation 12.5.9, then you'd do:
   git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules.git
   git checkout workstation-12.5.9
(This project is recommended by: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware#Kernel_modules).
3. cd to the git repo dir (vmware-host-modules) and follow the instructions in the INSTALL document of the project to "Build and install modules - DIRECTLY", i.e., the section "2a." as of this writing. This is important, as it will ensure that your modules are build specifically for your CURRENT kernel. Follow all the steps carefully. You are NOT done yet. If you run vmware at this point, you will get the error that this bug mentions. Next step, you'll fix it.
4. Enter the following sequence of commands in the console:

    cd /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1
    sudo mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.old
    sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 .
    sudo depmod -a
    sudo /etc/init.d/vmware restart

5. If all went OK, you should be ready by know. VMware Workstation (at least 12.5.9 on Ubuntu 18.04) now should work.