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Installing VirtualBox

27/11/09

Installing VirtualBox

To install VirtualBox you can either download the deb file or add the repository to the list held locally.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list 
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic non-free
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you are installing this on a host which is running Karmic Server you will also need to install gcc as the kernel modules need to be installed.

sudo apt-get install gcc virtualbox-3.1

You will get asked about compiling kernel modules say Yes. This is about it. The dkms package will be installed as a dependency and will automatically rebuild the modules as necessary when the Kernel gets updated. Much, much, better then the vitalization breaking each time like the "other" virtual software :-/

Add the following line to you /etc/fstab to allow the use of USB devices in the guest.

sudo nano /etc/fstab
# this was added to get USB working with VirtualBox guests in Karmic 
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=123,devmode=664 0 0

One last step, the user(s) who will be running VirtualBox gurests needs to be a member of that group.

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username

The documentation is pretty good too. Go take a look it explains nearly every option and configuration item very well. This is the Downloads page that has a link to the documentation.

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