Unable to install VirtualBox guest additions on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS with HWE - why?

Question

Recently I have installed HWE on my Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS running inside VirtualBox. It was a clean installation without any PPAs and without third-party repositories. Some info is below:

$ head -n2 /etc/apt/sources.list
#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-MATE 18.04 LTS _Bionic Beaver_ - Release amd64 (20180426)]/ bionic main multiverse restricted universe

$ hwe-support-status
Your Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is supported until April 2023.

$ dpkg -l | grep hwe
ii  linux-generic-hwe-18.04                 4.18.0.15.65                            amd64        Complete Generic Linux kernel and headers
ii  linux-headers-generic-hwe-18.04         4.18.0.15.65                            amd64        Generic Linux kernel headers
ii  linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04           4.18.0.15.65                            amd64        Generic Linux kernel image
ii  xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04             2:1.20.1-3ubuntu2.1~18.04.1             amd64        Xorg X server - core server
ii  xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04                  1:7.7+19ubuntu8~18.04.2                 amd64        X.Org X server
ii  xserver-xorg-input-all-hwe-18.04        1:7.7+19ubuntu8~18.04.2                 amd64        X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
ii  xserver-xorg-input-libinput-hwe-18.04   0.28.1-1~18.04.1                        amd64        X.Org X server -- libinput input driver
ii  xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04           2:1.20.1-3ubuntu2.1~18.04.1             amd64        setuid root Xorg server wrapper
ii  xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-18.04        1:7.7+19ubuntu8~18.04.2                 amd64        X.Org X server -- output driver metapackage
ii  xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu-hwe-18.04     18.1.0-1~18.04.1                        amd64        X.Org X server -- AMDGPU display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-ati-hwe-18.04        1:18.1.0-1~18.04.1                      amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI display driver wrapper
ii  xserver-xorg-video-fbdev-hwe-18.04      1:0.5.0-1ubuntu1~18.04.1                amd64        X.Org X server -- fbdev display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04      2:2.99.917+git20171229-1ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64        X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-hwe-18.04    1:1.0.15-3~18.04.1                      amd64        X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-qxl-hwe-18.04        0.1.5-2build2~18.04.1                   amd64        X.Org X server -- QXL display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-radeon-hwe-18.04     1:18.1.0-1~18.04.1                      amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-vesa-hwe-18.04       1:2.4.0-1~18.04.1                       amd64        X.Org X server -- VESA display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-vmware-hwe-18.04     1:13.3.0-2build1~18.04.1                amd64        X.Org X server -- VMware display driver

$ uname -r
4.18.0-15-generic

Before the HWE installation I have installed virtualbox-guest-x11, but now it is removed. Moreover I can't install it again:

$ sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 virtualbox-guest-x11 : Depends: xorg-video-abi-23
                        Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.18.99.901)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

and HWE-named one too:

$ sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe : Depends: xorg-video-abi-23
                            Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.18.99.901)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

What should I do?

Solution

Update: the bug was fixed on 2019-03-08 with version virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe 5.2.18-dfsg-3~ubuntu18.04.3.

---

It was dependency issue, so I have reported two bugs:

1. bug 1816383 - Unable to install virtualbox-guest-x11 on 18.04.2 LTS with HWE
2. bug 1816386 - Unable to install virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe on 18.04.2 LTS with HWE

So the most straightforward solution will be install ordinary kernel and Xorg and then remove HWE packages

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg linux-image-generic
sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04 linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04
sudo apt-get autoremove

and then reinstall virtualbox-guest-x11 with

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11

Comments

[N0rbert]

Thanks for your answer, but it does not work (show above error about unmet dependencies).

[Ubunter]

ok, You could try launch ap-get aptitude and aptitude reinstall virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe

[N0rbert]

Oh dear, it is dependency issue. We can not fix it this way. It will remove HWE.

[EM0]

By doing this on Linux Mint 19.3 (MATE) I was able to install the virtualbox-guest-x11 package, but then X11 never started after reboot - I was stuck at a blinking cursor after the text boot part finished.