I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise) with kernel 3.8 now. Virtualbox fails with this error:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing



'/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'



as root. Users of Ubuntu, Fedora or Mandriva should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

One proposed solution I saw was:

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-dkms

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

That fails with this message:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree       

Reading state information... Done

The following NEW packages will be installed:

  virtualbox-dkms

0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 34 not upgraded.

Need to get 676 kB of archives.

After this operation, 3,899 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/universe virtualbox-dkms all 4.1.12-dfsg-2ubuntu0.3 [676 kB]

Fetched 676 kB in 2s (258 kB/s)          

Selecting previously unselected package virtualbox-dkms.

(Reading database ... 458635 files and directories currently installed.)

Unpacking virtualbox-dkms (from .../virtualbox-dkms_4.1.12-dfsg-2ubuntu0.3_all.deb) ...

Setting up virtualbox-dkms (4.1.12-dfsg-2ubuntu0.3) ...

Loading new virtualbox-4.1.12 DKMS files...

First Installation: checking all kernels...

Building only for 3.8.0-29-generic

Building initial module for 3.8.0-29-generic

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.8.0-29-generic (x86_64)

Consult /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox/4.1.12/build/make.log for more information.

 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                                                 [ OK ] 

 * Starting VirtualBox kernel modules                                                         * No suitable module for running kernel found

                                                                                      [fail]

invoke-rc.d: initscript virtualbox, action "restart" failed.