When trying to build the VMware tools in my Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit guest on a VMware Server 2.0.2 host with Debian 5 I'm getting strange errors like:

Building the vmmemctl module.

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Gehe in Verzeichnis '/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.31-19-server/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Betrete Verzeichnis '/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-19-server'
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/backdoorGcc64.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/backdoor.h:29,
             from /tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/backdoorGcc64.c:38:
/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/vm_basic_types.h:108:7: warning: "__FreeBSD__" is not defined
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/os.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/os.c:51:
/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/compat_wait.h:78: error: conflicting types for ‘poll_initwait’
include/linux/poll.h:70: note: previous declaration of ‘poll_initwait’ was here
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only/os.o] Fehler 1 
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only] Fehler 2
make[1]: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-19-server'
make: *** [vmmemctl.ko] Fehler 2
make: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/tmp/vmware-config8/vmmemctl-only'
Unable to build the vmmemctl module.

I googled half the Internet but couldn't come to a solution. None of the kernel modules seems to build correctly.

While googling I read something about a bug in this kernel tree.