Questions on “building” VirtualBox 7.2.8 in Windows 11 and "handling" openSUSE, Leap-16.0, “guest’s” backported kernels

[2014User]

Please forward the text and questions below to an Oracle VM (Virtual “Machine”) VirtualBox computer-code writer and request that he afterward please write his reply to this posting directly in this so-called "thread" of online postings. Thank you.

Background: I have Oracle (Corporation) VM (Virtual “Machine”) VirtualBox 7.2.8r173730 (QT6.8.0) installed in a 64-bit, Windows-11 Professional Edition, so-called “host” operating system. And within that VirtualBox installation I have a 64-bit, openSUSE, Leap-16.0, Linux operating system installed as a so-called “guest” operating system. In the window provided by that VirtualBox installation for that Leap-16.0 operating system, neither “Devices, Update Guest Additions…” nor “Devices, Insert Guest Additions CD” (Compact Disc) “image…” resulted in the production of VirtualBox Guest Additions without errors while, for example, the Leap-16.0, Linux kernel-default 6.12.0-160000.29.1 was running. Those failures are likely due to a VirtualBox version ≥7.2.8 not yet having been produced which can accommodate all of the backporting of computer code from newer Linux kernels into older Linux kernels within the openSUSE, Leap-16.0, Linux kernels; and such backported kernel code was likely “inherited” by openSUSE from the SUSE (Software- und-System Entwicklung) Linux Enterprise-16 (SLE-16) Linux kernels. Though either one of those two “Devices, …” methods, with perhaps equivalent results, would be my preferred method for obtaining VirtualBox Guest Additions in openSUSE installations, these failures are not serious problems because I can otherwise rely on the VirtualBox Guest Additions which come with the Leap-16.0 Linux “kernel-default”s and/or the Leap-16.0 software package virtualbox-kmp-default.

Question 1: Do you expect to accommodate Leap-16.0 kernels, with the backporting of computer code from higher-numbered kernel versions to lower-numbered kernel versions, in future versions of VirtualBox?

At a mostly elementary level I have been at-least beginning to think about what could be essential to accommodate the Leap-16.0 Linux “kernel-default”s in VirtualBox 7.2.8, which might turn out to be the method you used to accommodate the Leap-15.4 to Leap-15.6 Linux kernels in VirtualBox versions ≤7.2.6. And though, for multiple reasons, completing this task might be a lengthy and difficult process for me, I have been wondering if I myself would be able to, in some way, have some open-source, VirtualBox-7.2.8 computer code modified in order to accommodate the backport-including Leap-16.0 kernels in VirtualBox 7.2.8.

My first conclusion in this regard is that the main, VirtualBox executable or binary file VirtualBox.exe would have to be “built” within my “host,” Windows-11 operating system, despite the fact that the necessary, backport-including Leap-16.0 Linux kernels for that VirtualBox.exe, or a subsidiary “host,” VirtualBox file, would have to come from my Leap-16.0 installation. And I suppose that would mean that, in order for me to “build” such a file in my Windows-11 “host” installation, I should choose to click on “Windows host” for the needed instructions on https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Build_instructions on the Internet. (In fact, I already began acquiring some of the needed computer codes in my Windows-11 installation that were listed after I clicked on “Windows host” on https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Build_instructions.)

Question 2: Do you agree with this conclusion of mine in my previous paragraph here?

A beginning for such an accommodation process appears to be to obtain the source code for VirtualBox 7.2.8. I could gratefully download that file called VirtualBox-7.2.8.tar.bz2 from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads#manual. Afterward I should learn some command in Windows 11 to decompress that file so that its component folders and files could either be seen and humanly modified or else be modified by a computer code.

Before the year 2022 I think that the late Larry Finger, who was either a volunteer helper or else was employed by openSUSE Leap, spent lots of time modifying probably open-source, VirtualBox computer code, perhaps in his part, by producing Application Programming Interfaces (API) in order to make probably multiple VirtualBox versions accommodate the backport-included openSUSE Leap kernels. I suspect that he may have made, or helped in making such accommodations in some VirtualBox versions for Leap-15.0-to-Leap-15.3 “guest” operating systems. Afterward, for the Leap-15.4 to Leap-15.6 “guest” operating systems, one or more Oracle Corporation personnel kindly made such accommodations in multiple VirtualBox versions, as evidenced in the so-called “Changelogs” for the versions of VirtualBox he or they produced during the years of 2022-2024.

In the second posting of the so-called “bug” report ‘Bug 1263982’ entitled

‘"Devices, Upgrade Guest Additions..." failed in Leap-16.0 "guest" in VirtualBox 7.2.8. ’

on https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1263982 there is outlined a procedure that perhaps might ultimately result in the semi-automated accommodation in modified VirtualBox 7.2.8 of the backport-included Leap-16.0 “kernel-default”s. As reported there, that procedure failed, perhaps because there were some version mismatches with some of them appearing to be associated with VirtualBox 7.2.6 while working within Leap-16.0, which in turn was within the VirtualBox-7.2.8 hypervisor. But the poster there was optimistic that that procedure might work in the future after 7.2.8-related versions of some software packages, such as virtualbox-guest-source, would hopefully be released in the future through openSUSE, Leap-16.0, computer-software repositories. In that procedure the backport-included kernel source code for at least the running, Leap-16.0 Linux kernel would appear to certainly be introduced via the “Command 1”, as a so-called “root” user, of

zypper install kernel-source kernel-syms

. But for “Command 3”, still as a “root” user, of

/sbin/vboxguestconfig

, it was necessary to have the software packages virtualbox-guest-source and virtualbox-guest-tools installed via, for example, via the commands as a “root” user of

zypper install virtualbox-guest-tools 
zypper install virtualbox-guest-source

(Note that, contrary to the posting there, the above two commands should be entered separately on each of their own lines rather than together on the same line; or else one could likely have success in those installations with the command “zypper install virtualbox-guest-tools virtualbox-guest-source” as a “root” user.).

So after the version-7.2.8-related versions of virtualbox-guest-source and virtualbox-guest-tools would hopefully be released through openSUSE, Leap-16.0 repositories, there is a question of whether the entry, as a “root” user, of the commands of

zypper install virtualbox-guest-tools 
zypper install virtualbox-guest-source
/sbin/vboxguestconfig

would result in successes in “building” VirtualBox Guest Additions via “Devices, Upgrade Guest Additions…” and “Devices, Insert Guest Additions CD image…” in a Leap-16.0 “guest” operating system while a Leap-16.0 kernel-default is running in it in VirtualBox 7.2.8. I do not know enough about the computer codes that will hopefully be involved in the future to answer that question with certainty. But if the 7.2.8-relative version of virtualbox-guest-source has to include the effect of backported-Leap-16.0 Linux “kernel-default”s in it, the answer would likely be a failure; otherwise if those backported-Leap-16.0 Linux “kernel-default”s are used in /sbin/vboxguestconfig to so-modify the input virtualbox-guest-source to make a new virtualbox-guest-source which includes the effect of the backported -Leap-16.0 Linux “kernel-default”s in it, and then maybe to “build” the necessary VirtualBox.exe and other VirtualBox output files, then the answer might be a success.

But for now let me assume a future failure in the above-discussed semi-automated process.

Question 3a: Would the backport-included Leap-16.0 Linux kernels be included by my following the instructions after clicking on “Windows host” on https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Build_instructions?
Question 3b: If so, where among those instructions would there be that inclusion?

[2014User]

Sorry, on a “visit” to the second posting on https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1263982 on the Internet

zypper install virtualbox-guest-tools

and

zypper install virtualbox-guest-source

were on two lines after all!