Durring the installation process of VMWare 1.08, it is possible to come accross a similar screen to this:

match your running kernel? [/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/build/include]
Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.Building the vmmon module

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.

make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-16-generic'
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:80:
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error:
expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘compat_exit’
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘exit_code’
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘_syscall1’
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-16-generic'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.

For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please
visit our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/download/modules/modules.html" and
"http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/prebuilt_modules_linux.html".

Execution aborted.

The solution for this happens to be fairly straight forward. Download the attached patch and extract it. Then switch to the extracted directory, and run runme.pl. From there, your installation should continue normally.