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lonix
Asked: 2018-07-01 01:56:52 +0800 CST

Failed to install latest virtualbox 5.2.10 on ubuntu 18.04

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My OS and all packages were updated and functional. I received an upgrade notice for virtualbox, so I let it update. It failed and left my OS unstable.

So I remove it completely:

sudo dpkg --purge virtualbox-qt
sudo dpkg --purge virtualbox
sudo dpkg --purge virtualbox-dkms
sudo dpkg --purge dkms
sudo apt autoremove
sudo find / -name vbox             # delete anything found by this command
sudo find / -name virtualbox       # delete anything found by this command

Now I have a "clean" system. So I do:

sudo apt install virtualbox

And it always gets this far then freezes:

Setting up virtualbox-dkms (5.2.10-dfsg-6ubuntu18.04.1) ...
Loading new virtualbox-5.2.10 DKMS files...
Building for 4.15.0-23-generic
Building initial module for 4.15.0-23-generic

I can't even ctrl-c, so:

  • I kill the process
  • of course then dpkg says to do sudo dpkg --configure -a, so I do that, then retry
  • but it gets stuck in the same place
  • so I remove everything again, retry, and it freezes there again, etc.

Some notes:

  • When I originally installed vbox I used a script to sign its modules so I don't need to disable secure boot. I don't want to disable secure boot now either.
  • Is there a way I can examine some log to tell me what is going wrong? I looked at /var/log/syslog but there is nothing interesting in there.
virtualbox dpkg apt secure-boot 18.04

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I finally figured out that apt provides 5.2.10 but oracle's latest is 5.2.12.

    So I added the key and repository to apt. Then installed virtualbox-5.2 package. It works.

    Not ideal, because there's all sorts of stuff that now wants to remove it and install virtualbox instead, and I need to remember to disallow that every time.

    But at least it works. Once 5.2 is in the apt repos, I guess I can switch back.

    • 2

  2. I installed virtualbox 5.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 but it does not work. See did not working instruction (if you are interested in it) https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

    On my other computer with Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia everything work after simple command:

    sudo apt-get install virtualbox
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