Arch Linux

ddifof

Member

Registered: 2018-08-02

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] Do I need Virtualbox DKMS packages?

EDIT: I don't want to necrobump but this was easy to do. The virtualbox-bin-5 package contains a guest ISO as the other commenter mentioned, which you can mount and run within your VMs to build kernel modules or install tools for Windows hosts.

You can also use
virtualbox-host-modules-arch-5.2.22-6-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
virtualbox-guest-modules-arch-5.2.22-6-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
Or other similar 5.2.x host/guest module Arch packages as they're still compatible with the 5.2 AUR binary package.

As for what's lost by using non-OSE, the only thing I noticed was the GUI got slightly slimmed, and the logo in About is the standard Oracle Virtualbox logo.
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I've put off updating my Arch system because I need to update Virtualbox.
Unfortunately the 6.0 release is reported to be plagued with issues: https://old.reddit.com/r/virtualbox/com … tualbox_6/

I can't risk my VMs becoming corrupt, but with all the major changes in Linux 5.0, I really want to upgrade and move off LTS.
Oracle is apparently supporting 5.2 until 2020, at which point I'll switch to 6.0 or to another VM/KVM application.

My two comfortable options are:

1. Compile Virtualbox 5.2 from source, which I worry I'll do incorrect and miss compiling something.

2. Install https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/virtualbox-bin-5/ which is the latest non-OSE version.

My questions are,

• If I install the AUR package, what do I lose by using the non-OSE package?

• Do I still need either of the below DKMS packages to allow for host-guest clipboard and shared folders? Or will the DKMS modules compile automatically if I have the binary package installed?

virtualbox-host-dkms
virtualbox-guest-dkms

There are no host or guest DKMS module AUR packages for 5.2 non-OSE.
Thanks

Last edited by ddifof (2019-06-01 13:25:02)

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,919

Re: [SOLVED] Do I need Virtualbox DKMS packages?

Do I still need either of the below DKMS packages to allow for host-guest clipboard and shared folders? Or will the DKMS modules compile automatically if I have the binary package installed?

according to the provides and source arrays the virtualbox-bin-5 has it's own dkms package for the host.
They also provide a guest iso, You'll have to ask the maintainer if (archlinux) guests require something more.

No idea about difference between virtualbox Open Source Edition and Oracle virtualbox, sorry.

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