VirtualBox repo not available for Fedora 21

[robatino]

Fedora 21 was released yesterday, but the VirtualBox repo is still not available for it. It seems like it usually takes a few days after release for that to happen.

[loukingjr]

Lucky for me then I just download VirtualBox from the download page.

[robatino]

That's a workaround, and I've already done that, but it means you either have to keep checking if the repo is available, or keep checking if a new version is available for manual download, or just enable the repo and then keep disabling it with --disablerepo=virtualbox until it actually works (which is what I do).

[loukingjr]

It's not actually a workaround for me. I don't use the repo versions of VirtualBox for any guest. Just as an example, VB 4.3.20 was available long before F21 was released and it works fine.

[feraltroll]

The reason yum does not work is that there is no directory on the VirtualBox server for Fedora 21 yet:

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/

If you check the sub-directories for Fedora 19 and 20 in the VB repo you'll see that they all contain the Fedora 18 version of the VirtualBox RPM so what you can do is to edit the file:

/etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo

...comment out the following line:

#baseurl=http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... /$basearch

...then duplicate it, comment the new line back in and change %releaseserver to 20.

baseurl=http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... /$basearch

This will install the the RPM in the Fedora 20 directory in the VB repository on Fedora 21. I'm not saying this is safe, although it's probably no worse than installing VB on Fedora 21 from RPM, since the RPM you can download off the website is probably the same as in the repository. Just remember that there are no promises about stability so make a backup of your virtual machines before you try this work-around.

[rexbinary]

Anyone know how we could reach out to someone to get this issue resolved?

[robatino]

Anyone know how we could reach out to someone to get this issue resolved?

I'm hoping that maybe they're waiting until the next VB release to fix the repo. (Not that it should take more than a minute or two to make a 21/ copy. They might even be able to just have a single 18/ copy and use links for 19/, 20/, and 21/.) If at that point they still haven't, I'll point out to them that having an unmaintained repo is worse than none at all, and ask them to please choose between either fixing it or just getting rid of the repo. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads could also stand to be updated, currently it refers only to F18 and F19, both of which are End of Life. As of F21, Fedora no longer uses release names, so it could just say something like "F18/F19/F20/F21" or "F18 and up".

[robatino]

Looks like not only are the repos not being updated for F21, but they're not updated for the newly released 4.2.28 either, for any Fedora version. The directories include 4.2.x up to x=26.

[Perryg]

I might point out that the 4.2.28 release ( for the 4.2 version ) is a maintenance release and AFAIK you probably will not get F21 to work in it.

[robatino]

I might point out that the 4.2.28 release ( for the 4.2 version ) is a maintenance release and AFAIK you probably will not get F21 to work in it.

OK, but the contents of 18/, 19/, and 20/ are identical and the older versions would probably work with 4.2.28, if the repos included it.

[Perryg]

That part I can't help you with. I never use the repo.

If you are serious about having the repo updated you should create a ticket at bugtracker

[robatino]

I would file a bug if it was clear that this was a Bugtracker issue. I don't see any categories there to report anything except bugs in the VirtualBox package itself. See my query at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=64762&p=309856#p309856 .

[Perryg]

That's up to you then. Wait and hope that a DEV comes by and see this thread, but it might be a long time if ever.

[snev]

The newest versions of VB are avalable at the RpmFusion repo. I think it's much more appropriate than original VB's repo.

[Perryg]

The newest versions of VB are avalable at the RpmFusion repo. I think it's much more appropriate than original VB's repo.

And *not* supported here.