[WorksForMe] Very unhelpful message from the .deb when I try to install it

[WhatHaveYou]

When I try to install virtualbox-6.0_6.0.0~beta1-125994~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb on Mint 19 Cinnamon, I get the cryptic message shown in the attached screenshot.

[socratis]

That seems to be a message from your package manager, no? Do you get the same if you try 'apt-get install'? If not, what do you get?

For future reference, next time please downsize your attached images by 50% (at least), or simply change the DPI to 72. Not everyone is blessed with a HiDPI display

[WhatHaveYou]

Thanks.

The message is displayed by the .deb installed - GDebi, I think it is called. I was presuming the text of the message owed to your .deb. As to why I don't use apt-get: well, this is a beta, so I presumed that it (the beta) would not be in my distribution's repositories - and I've just checked, and it isn't (unless it is filed under some strange name).

> Not everyone is blessed with a HiDPI display

Or, in the case of some programs, cursed. For the reason I'm trying to run the beta is to see whether various display problems, which I think have to do with HiDPI, have been fixed. [EDIT: but point taken about screenshots that are posted here.] So . . do please tell me how to install the beta. I'm on Mint 19, which is based on Ubuntu Bionic.

[socratis]

so I presumed that it (the beta) would not be in my distribution's repositories

The distro's repositories are not supported. They're a "fork" of sorts...

Is this an error to begin with? I can't even see the whole message, that's why I asked for a command line tool, they don't tend to chop-off the errors. You could use:

• 
  dpkg -i <package file>

from the command line...

[WhatHaveYou]

Oh - perhaps I had misunderstood. So . .

$  sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-6.0_6.0.0~beta1-125994~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package virtualbox-6.0.
dpkg: regarding virtualbox-6.0_6.0.0~beta1-125994~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb containing virtualbox-6.0:
 virtualbox-6.0 conflicts with virtualbox
  virtualbox-5.2 provides virtualbox and is present and installed.

dpkg: error processing archive virtualbox-6.0_6.0.0~beta1-125994~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb (--install):
 conflicting packages - not installing virtualbox-6.0
Errors were encountered while processing:

I take it then that I have to uninstall the old VirtualBox first. And . . that did allow installation of the beta. Telling people that the uninstall is necessary, would be a good idea. Also, if the error message text - from Gdebei - is under your control, it would be good to improve it.

Also: when I run the beta, I get an error message:

Untitled.png (17.25 KiB) Viewed 3576 times

VBox does run, though - but then I get this:

new.png (60.23 KiB) Viewed 3576 times

I can work around that, I think. But, still, all of this could be smoother, even at the beta stage.

[WhatHaveYou]

Next I had all sorts of fun with kernel headers, perhaps because I am running a very recent kernel. Then I had to try to determine which of the various VBox Extensions downloads that you offer is the right one.

Vbox GUI problem: there's an inclination to try to run a VM by clicking on the 'preview' pane - especially when (because the VM has yet to run in the new version of Vbox? [EDIT: no; rather because the VM is powered-off]) it just says (in my case) 'Win 10 Home')

VM problem: no text ever appears within the VM (Windows 10 Home) when I type anything. Mouse clicks work, though. EDIT: after restarting the VM, the keyboard worked.

[WhatHaveYou]

I can report also on one of the problems I had with the old Vbox (5.2), namely, that when the pointer image had changed, sometimes it never changed back or else there was a long delay for it to change back. I've tested this with the beta in Word 365. The problem is greatly lessened, in that the pointer does change back, and fairly quickly, but not as quickly as it should (even though the VM has two fast cores assigned to it, and > 4GB RAM, and neither the VM nor the host machine were under load).

Also: sometimes the VBox pop-up bar (at the bottom of the screen) does not auto-hide when set to autohide; rather, it stays on top.

[socratis]

Telling people that the uninstall is necessary, would be a good idea.

It tells you doesn't it? And that's a package manager issue, not a VirtualBox one...

As for the rest of your issues, please open a new thread, I'm not even going to attempt to solve all your beta problems in a single thread that deals with the installation. One issue per thread, one thread per issue.

Marking this one as [WorksForMe].