Question

2

reinstall virtualbox on ubuntu 12.04.1

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 19418 / 2 Years ago, fri, september 16, 2022, 3:14:30

My virtualbox used to work, but now it is for some reason completely FUBAR: every time I try to start a VM, it crashes my host Ubuntu 12.04.1 system, I can't even bring it to reboot with the Magic SysRq key. I would like to clean up the mess and reinstall a working virtualbox.

I thought this would do:

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox

# reboot

sudo apt-get install virtualbox

But I get the same effect: even when downloading a fresh iso of any kind and starting the VM, it crashes the computer and I need to do a hard reboot.

EDIT: as per commented, I installed version 4.2 using these instructions:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -  

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian precise contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list'  

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.2

Ran virtualbox, checked the version: 4.2.6 r82870

It didn't crash, so problem solved.
(copy+paste to answer)

Any ideas?

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warrdel

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3 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago armis · Accepted Answer

As reported from the comments installing the packages from virtualbox.org solved the issue.

Remove the currently installed packages from the Ubuntu repositories.
```
sudo apt-get remove virtualbox*
```

Add a new file to the APT sources, e.g. /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list with just this one line where precise is for 12.04 in your case, but should be replaced with the version of Ubuntu it's installed on:
```
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian precise contrib
```

Add the repository key to your APT GPG keyring to trust it:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update the lists:
```
sudo apt-get update
```

Install the branch version you like by the package name, at this moment (virtualbox-4.2):
```
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.2
```

Add yourself and other users on the system to the vboxusers system group, by doing e.g.:
```
sudo adduser username vboxusers
```

Now log out and log back in (or reboot). Yes, this is ugly, but your current running session isn't aware of the additional group you belong to now.

Optional: install the closed-source extension pack from the general download page for "Support for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.".
- Download the .vbox-extpack file.
- In Virtualbox main screen, hit menu File -> Preferences -> vertical tab Extensions
- Add the package there.

Done!

The reason for why the Ubuntu ones weren't working and these packages are could be:

It's the open source version packaged, opposed to closed-source components from Virtualbox directly.

Ubuntu ships an older 4.1.12 version at the time of writing whereas 4.1.22 is already released in the 4.1.x branch.

You may have installed the completely newer 4.2 version of Virtualbox this way, not available in Ubuntu.

Either way, it's a bug in the Ubuntu packages. You might want to locate this bug on the Ubuntu bug tracker and report yourself affected.