http://communities.vmware.com/thread/229957
5.4 upgrades glibc to 2.5-42.i686, this causes problems with vmware-hostd and it crashes shortly after being started (I can get it to crash just by logging in and clicking on a vm)
fix ...
Get a copy of 5.3 glibc, you can get it from a install dvd, google, another box. Just make sure if you have a 32bit machine you get the 32 bit, and 64 for 64bit.
mkdir /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6
cp libc-2.5.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/
chown root:root /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/libc-2.5.so
mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/libc-2.5.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/libc.so.6
vi /usr/sbin/vmware-hostd
added an "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" before the last line.
restart /etc/init.d/vmware
