VirtualBox kernel driver unavailable.

Project:Trisquel
Version:6.0
Component:Packages
Category:bug report
Priority:critical
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:wrong
Description

I had a few errors while trying to start a new virtual machine on virtual box.
The "/dev/vboxdrv" and "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv"
I have attached two screen-shots of the error windows.

AttachmentSize
Screenshot from 2013-04-22 16:04:34.png42.02 KB
Screenshot from 2013-04-22 16:04:41.png35.5 KB
Mon, 04/22/2013 - 14:15

Have you installed virtualbox-dkms and perhaps virtualbox-guest-dkms?

Mon, 04/22/2013 - 16:10

I had already installed the packages while installing virtualbox.

Mon, 04/22/2013 - 16:43

Which kernel version are you using?

$ uname -r

With the "linux-generic-lts-belenos" package (which depends on 3.5 image) I get no virtualization, because, I guess, VirtualBox support was dropped; see "The VirtualBox Kernel Driver Is Tainted Crap" in http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTk5Mw .

Version 3.2 -- "linux-generic" -- supports it.

Mon, 04/22/2013 - 17:00

I am using the "3.2.0-38-generic x86_64"
I have learned qemu so i guess now won't need virtualbox.

Mon, 04/22/2013 - 23:41
Status:active» won't fix

Marking as "won't fix" since reporter doesn't need issue fixed. Please re-open if this issue impacts another user.

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 15:58
Status:won't fix» active

I have exactly the same problem. If this error is not going to be fixed, it is better to remove the package.

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 19:43

Executing:
sudo aptitude install linux-generic
solves the problem. Thank you GustavoCM.

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 19:59
Status:active» wrong

You are welcome.

SirGrant: I can't revert back to "won't fix"; so, I ticked the more close to that.

Sun, 05/19/2013 - 06:21
Status:wrong» closed

An update received on Sunday, May 19 2013, which included package
"linux-image-3.2.0-43-generic" of version "3.2.0-43.68+6.0.trisquel"
fixed this issue.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 20:25
Status:closed» active

I still experience this problem. Running "sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" leads to "sudo: /etc/init.d/vboxdrv: command not found"

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 06:25

I think it is just vbox or virtualbox not vboxdrv anymore

Wed, 08/07/2013 - 01:34

For me, running
sudo /etc/init.d/virtualbox start

returns this:
* Starting VirtualBox kernel modules
* No suitable module for running kernel found
[fail]

I'm running Jason Self's Linux-libre kernel (3.10.4-gnu).

Wed, 08/07/2013 - 11:58

I installed Module Assistant:
https://wiki.debian.org/ModuleAssistant

and tried compiling the Virtualbox module using m-a. The following command:
sudo m-a -k /usr/src/linux-headers-3.10.5-gnu/ a-i virtualbox

returns this:
Updated infos about 1 packages
Bad kernel version specification at /usr/bin/m-a line 568, <$apt> line 9.

Could this be because Jason Self's Linux-libre version has a -gnu appended at the end of it? (I haven't had time to understand the m-a source code yet, so I don't know myself).

Mon, 01/19/2015 - 07:48

Note that VirtualBox isn't packaged in Trisquel 7 so this bug only applies to version 6.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 21:40
Status:active» wrong

Despite it working with and frequently being mentioned on the forum jxself's kernel is not part of Trisquel. So please contact jxself for support for his kernel as per this page:

http://jxself.org/linux-libre/

However, it is quite possible you have simply failed to install the appropriate kernel headers package as per this wiki page:

https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel

Just 'Find' on Virtualbox to get to the right details quickly.

The reason Virtualbox is not in Belenos is the upstream BIOS it uses now requires a non-free compiler to build it. It is therefore very unlikely to be reincluded as Oracle have indicated they were pursuing complier features and have no interest in GNU FSDG compliance. Further loading the Virtualbox kernel device driver causes Linux [sic] to operate in a degraded 'taint' mode in terms of detecting errors and other reliablity features. This was because the VB driver has such a history of unreliablity LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List) decided to consider it too low quality to be trusted.

Thus in terms of both the future and reliability you are better moving to a KVM based solution *now*. Search the forum for suggestions as to which GUI to use.