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VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

Linux Kernel, Network, and Services configuration.
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pwzhangzz
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VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#1 Post by pwzhangzz »

Has anyone ever successfully installed VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye? I tried several options all failed.

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Bloom
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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#2 Post by Bloom »

No. There are dependency problems and Oracle doesn't seem to want to fix them.

I switched to KVM/QEMU with LibVirt and virt-manager. Works flawlessly and I never looked back.
See https://wiki.debian.org/KVM

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#3 Post by peer »

I also switched to KVM/QEMU from virtualbox a few months ago.

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#4 Post by quixote »

After days of searching and sort-of-blowing-up-apt (dangling broken dependencies :shock: ), I finally found something on youtube, of all places, by Amine Tech. Whether it works for you depends on whether version 6.1.16 is good enough, since the latest now is 6.1.18.

The secret is that Virtualbox has a generic linux version at the Oracle site. Continue down that page to the end of the "Linux Distributions" until you get to "all distributions." Download the installer on that line.

Then execute the following:

Code: Select all

S sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-amd64
$ cd Downloads/        #or wherever the .run file was put
$ sudo chmod +x VirtualBox*.run     #previously downloaded from Oracle --> "For all distributions" so does not depend on the problematic libs
$ sudo ./VirtualBox*.run
$ vboxversion=$(wget -qO - https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/LATEST.TXT)
$ wget "https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/${vboxversion}/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-${vboxversion}.vbox-extpack"
$ sudo vboxmanage extpack install --replace Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-${vboxversion}.vbox-extpack
$ sudo usermod -aG vboxusers [username]
And then reboot.

One maybe-not-minor wrinkle: LATEST.TXT now points to version 6.1.18. So the extension pack is a minor version ahead of the virtualbox itself. It didn't cause a problem on my system. Yet, anyway.

Hope it works for you too :D

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#5 Post by drasar »

Yes, I'm using VB on Bullseye. Just setup APT pinning from unstable (where VB is available in the repo).

My config is:

Code: Select all

# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable.list
deb http://ftp.cz.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib

# cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/limit-unstable
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 100
Then you will be able to install packages from unstable:

Code: Select all

# apt-get update
# apt-get install virtualbox-qt

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#6 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

drasar wrote:Just setup APT pinning from unstable
If the VB package in sid moves to a higher glibc version dependency than is available in bullseye (which is likely at some point) then that method can break your system in a very fundamental way.
deadbang

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#7 Post by drasar »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
drasar wrote:Just setup APT pinning from unstable
If the VB package in sid moves to a higher glibc version dependency than is available in bullseye (which is likely at some point) then that method can break your system in a very fundamental way.
If there a dependency issue occurs with the new version, then you can temporarily stay (days, max weeks) with the currently installed VB version until new dependencies are available also in the testing.

I'm using this configuration over a year and no issues except above observed.

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#8 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

drasar wrote:I'm using this configuration over a year and no issues except above observed
Yes and bullseye has been testing for all of that time, which only lags unstable by about two weeks. That situation will change radically when bullseye is released as Debian 11 in a few months time.
deadbang

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#9 Post by Loci.Cantos »

Bloom wrote:No. There are dependency problems and Oracle doesn't seem to want to fix them.

I switched to KVM/QEMU with LibVirt and virt-manager. Works flawlessly and I never looked back.
See https://wiki.debian.org/KVM
I like that name "QEMU". It's reminiscent of Quarterdeck Systems's old QEMM memory manager and DesqView Window manager. I especially like that it's worked flawlessly for you. I'm going to look into it on your recommendation. Thanks, Bloom.

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#10 Post by kalle123 »

There are several ways to install vbox on Bullseye/Testing.

1. wait until it shows up in the Debian Bullseye repos and install.

2. wait until the deb package for DEBIAN 11 shows up here
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads and install.

Risk is up to you, because that is not Debian but Oracle. :)
But nowadays we have simple to use tools like 'timeshift' in the repos, just in case. :wink:

3. or use ' All distributions (built on EL6 and therefore not requiring recent system libraries) ' on the 'Downloads' page and install now.

I just did that following the comprehensive (German) instruction
https://axebase.net/blog/2019/01/06/vir ... ueber-run/
on a fresh Bullseye (made a backup before!) following steps 3, 4 and 5, as I did not have a vbox installed on that system. Added 'Extension Packs' and imported a a WIN 7 vbox guest from my Buster system. No issues at the moment, looks good. I'll keep testing that vbox installation.

br KH

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#11 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

kalle123 wrote:wait until it shows up in the Debian Bullseye repos and install
VirtualBox will never be added to the stable release (or backported to it) because the Debian developers consider it a security risk. It really is a *terrible* virtualisation solution, probably the worst around.

See also https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=794466
deadbang

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#12 Post by kalle123 »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
kalle123 wrote:wait until it shows up in the Debian Bullseye repos and install
VirtualBox will never be added to the stable release (or backported to it) because the Debian developers consider it a security risk. It really is a *terrible* virtualisation solution, probably the worst around.

See also https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=794466
Your opinion. I don't agree. In my eyes this is a political thing and when I look over the fence to Arch Linux for example, I don't see that skepticism.

But back to the topic here. The starting question was
'Has anyone ever successfully installed VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye? I tried several options all failed.'

Have vbox on an old (obsolete) machine (Debian Testing) running for around one year now. With taking the sid package. But for my main computer in preparation for Bullseye I did not wanted to go that way. Made a test this morning and posted here. :wink:

br KH

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#13 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

kalle123 wrote:In my eyes this is a political thing
Well I suppose there is a "political" element because VirtualBox relies on non-free blobs, which should in itself be a warning sign for Debian users, but the linked bug report does clearly demonstrate how disinterested Oracle are in respect of security issues.

And anyway VB performance sucks compared to the open source QEMU/KVM alternative:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... -kvm&num=1

But this is off topic so I'll shut up now.
deadbang

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#14 Post by stevepusser »

Considering we've backported the upstream Debian 6.1.18 version to Buster and even Stretch for MX Linux, a backport on the openSUSE Build Service for Bullseye would be trivial in comparison. Just sayin'...
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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#15 Post by LE_746F6D617A7A69 »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:Well I suppose there is a "political" element because VirtualBox relies on non-free blobs, which should in itself be a warning sign for Debian users (...)
Exactly. One more thing could be raised here: VBox is actually much *slower* than QEMU+KVM. Regarding the security issues, for Me it is obvious that the Oracle is trying to monetize the VirtualBox - that's the only reason behind their decisions regarding hiding of security patches.\

In such situation, only a moron will use VBox - without having a possibility to review the code, VBox is not much different from a trojan.

Additionally, taking into account that today just everything is for sale, only a moron can trust a closed-source solutions ...
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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#16 Post by oswaldkelso »

Perhaps Virtual box should be renamed as "Skinner's box" :mrgreen:
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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#17 Post by pwzhangzz »

I used the generic Linux run package to install VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Debian 11 and everything works fine, including guest additions, etc., for both Windows 10 and Debian 11 VMs. I am using VirtualBox basically to avoid dual-booting between Windows 10 and Debian 11. QEMU/KVM seems to have a lot of problems with Windows 10 VM? ? ? I have been using VirtualBox for quite a while (~15 yrs) but am interested in learning more about QEMU/KVM.

Look forward to the VirtualBox package appearing in the Debian 11 repository.
Last edited by pwzhangzz on 2021-03-21 16:15, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#18 Post by kalle123 »

pwzhangzz wrote:I used the generic deb package to install VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Debian 11 and everything works fine, including guest additions, etc., for both Windows 10 and Debian 11 VMs.
What 'generic deb package' please?

One of the Ubuntu packages or Debian 10?

br KH

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#19 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

pwzhangzz wrote:QEMU/KVM seems to have a lot of problems with Windows 10 VM?
Not at all, I'm running Win10 under QEMU/KVM to play Tidal's MQA music files via a USB DAC passed through to the VM. It works superbly :)

Guide here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=144775
pwzhangzz wrote:Look forward to the VirtualBox package appearing in the Debian 11 repository.
I wrote:VirtualBox will never be added to the stable release (or backported to it) because the Debian developers consider it a security risk
Read the bug report to which I linked earlier for more on this.
deadbang

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Re: VirtualBox 6.1.18 on Bullseye?

#20 Post by kalle123 »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: ... because the Debian developers consider it a security risk
and the Mint developers for example are ignorant for having vbox 6.1.16-dfsg-6-ubuntu1.20.04.1 in their packages.

cu KH

Thinking of making a print out of that bug report and hanging it on the wall. :mrgreen:

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