Installing VirtualBox 3.0 On A Fedora 11 Desktop

> ...and then restart

I missed that the first time through. Why do you think a restart is necessary? The Virtualbox kernel modules are loadable modules. They don't require a restart to work. The binaries installed fine on my Slackware box with no restart required.

Thanks Tracyanne, I'll have to try that out on my Mini-9.

You probably have to log out because you need to add yourself to the vboxusers group. Restarting will do that, but of course that is not necessary.

I was going to mention that VirtualBox has direct .DEB repositories, but the story is for RPM, so I didn't want to hijack the thread.

For me the fact that the OSE has crippled USB support is very annoying. Could be that this particular marketing method might fall out of favor if VB is set loose by Oracle.

One can only hope.

You could change the group without logging out using newgrp i.e. newgrp vboxusers, then revert to original group again i.e. newgrp defaultGroup. Works fine without logging out at least for the terminal where these commands have been launched so will work for commands launched from that terminal.

Bob,

for me In Debian, the OSE never worked with USB. But I haven't really followed it, since I'm now preferring KVM.

Still I agree, that installing by the normal repo is by far the best way to end up with a working, no-headache system. I find the tips on sites like the HowTo Forge suboptimal in that regard. But that's only my 2 EuroCents, since I'm too biased to the Debian way maybe...

> I was going to mention that VirtualBox has direct .DEB repositories...

But, of course, no Slackware packages. The installer works fine with Slackware though, as I noted. It also notified me of an update when I started it up last night. I've downloaded it and will try to install it tonight. I also found that I had missed a step in the 3D setup (installing the guest additions in safe mode) which prevented part of the 3D drivers from loading. However, even after I redid the installation it still can't handle Pirates. :( I didn't try Sims2, but I'd expect the same.

It's graphics support and smoothness/speed of operation seem to be significantly better than that of VMWare, though I'll have to fire up both to do a side by side comparison to be certain.

wjl, USB is deliberately disabled in the OSE version.

@jdixon:

VirtualBox is supported in the SlackBuilds.org repository. http://slackbuilds.org/repository/12.2/system/

Search for "virtualbox" on that page.

> VirtualBox is supported in the SlackBuilds.org repository

Yes, but That's the OSE version, and version 2.1.4. :(

There's really nothing to installing the official package in Slackware 12.1. It's not as if a repo package provides any real advantages.

@bigg:

Except when you want to remove it. Putting the files under the control of the native package manager saves a lot of effort over launching a search-and-destroy mission.

> Except when you want to remove it. Putting the files under the control of the native package manager saves a lot of effort over launching a search-and-destroy mission.

It seems to put pretty much everything in /opt, so that's not too much trouble.

According to the manual (it's never been an issue for me):

Quoting:Starting with version 2.2.2, you can uninstall the .run package by invoking

/opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#id2497460

VirtualBox is very nice, though I grumble at USB support being only in the closed-source "enterprise" bit. Whatever :). It has a lot of nice features and is easy to manage multiple guests.

> I grumble at USB support being only in the closed-source

I couldn't agree more.

It will be very interesting to see what Oracle does with it.

> easy to manage multiple guests.

Ah yes, more post-hardware-upgrade fantasies. Not that I have any use for doing it, but like fine wine and fast women, it's fun to think about.

>... installing it is as simple as...

I finally found time to try this on my Mini-9, but it doesn't work. :(

Apparently the Mini-9 is configured to look in binary-lpia, not binary-i386, and the virtualbox repository doesn't have such a directory. I'd think a soft link to i386 would work, but...

Oh well, manual install time. At least the .deb is available.

Sigh, no go there either. It fails to compile the kernel module. I'm sure Dell doesn't include the kernel development packages, so I'd need it, and probably the lpia compatible packages too. And who knows what else. It's not worth the trouble, as I doubt the Min-9 really has the horsepower to run virtual machines well, especially since mine only has 512MB of memory (something I need to fix eventually).

And people wonder why I prefer Slackware.

Ok, more news. Installing the kernel headers (standard and lpia) allowed the i386 package to install with no errors and Virtual Box now appears to be operational. Now to see if I can get a work image of XP installed on it so I can use my Mini 9 for work. :)

It's a shame the repository doesn't work though, as now I'll have to keep it updated manually.

Hmm... No such luck. My XP SP3 install disk dies while trying to format the virtual drive, and the UBCD4Win disk we use for imaging machines dies when it tries to load the network drivers. :(. I've got a working virtual machine at home on my Slackware box. I'll try copying it over tonight and see if it works.