How to install latest virtualbox-dkms with latest virtualbox on Debian Stable Wheezy

Question

It is possible to install the latest virtualbox and extension pack on Wheezy using the following:

# su sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian wheezy contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | su apt-key add -
# apt-get update
# apt-get install virtualbox-4.3

If one then tries to install virtualbox-dkms (to prevent virtualbox from failing after a kernel upgrade) it is necessary to uninstall the latest (4.3) version of virtualbox.

The 4.3 virtualbox-dkms in not available in the wheezy backports, which can be added by as an administrator including the following line in /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main

How can the latest 4.3 virtualbox-dkms be installed with the latest virtualbox on Wheezy?

Solution 1

You don't need to install virtualbox-dkms.

You do need to install dkms package, which is a part of standard Debian repository.

I normally install it before installing VirtualBox, but the order might not matter:

$ sudo aptitude install dkms
$ sudo aptitude install virtualbox-4.3

During kernel updates you will see that DKMS updates VirtualBox modules automatically.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads:

Note: Ubuntu/Debian users might want to install the dkms package to ensure that the VirtualBox host kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt and vboxnetadp) are properly updated if the linux kernel version changes during the next apt-get upgrade. For Debian it is available in Lenny backports and in the normal repository for Squeeze and later.

Solution 2

Now that it's a seperate package it depends on the OSE version. When trying to install the PUEL version (the most recent version) on Ubuntu / Debian, just add the following file for e.g. 6.0.2 @ /usr/src/vboxhost-6.0.2/dkms.conf:

PACKAGE_NAME="vboxhost"
PACKAGE_VERSION="6.0.2"
MAKE[0]="make"
CLEAN="make clean"
BUILT_MODULE_NAME[0]="vboxdrv"
BUILT_MODULE_NAME[1]="vboxnetadp"
BUILT_MODULE_NAME[2]="vboxnetflt"
BUILT_MODULE_NAME[3]="vboxpci"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[0]="/kernel/drivers/misc"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[1]="/kernel/drivers/misc"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[2]="/kernel/drivers/misc"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[3]="/kernel/drivers/misc"
AUTOINSTALL="yes"

and run dkms autoinstall.

Comments

[PicoutputCls]

I had an issue with dkms autoinstall so rather than running dkms autoinstall I ran: dkms add -m vboxhost -v 6.0.2 && dkms build -m vboxhost -v 6.0.2 && dkms install -m vboxhost -v 6.0.2. After that, dkms status listed the module and eveything worked a treat!

[ジョージ]

With Focal Fossa (20.04), virtualbox-dkms is a dependency of the main virtualbox package ; I suspect this was the case earlier as well, but probably won't bother going back in time to check it )