virtualbox.org

My host machine runs xubuntu 16.04, and i've built a virtualbox guest on it running xubuntu 16.10.

For virtualbox itself i installed these ubuntu packages:

• virtualbox
  virtualbox-guest-additions-iso
  virtualbox-ext-pack
  vde2
  virtualbox-qt

On the guest, i installed the additions through the gui, which downloaded them from the internet.

It made a directory, on the guest, in /media/<<USERNAME>>/VBOXADDITIONS_5.0.24_108355

In that directory, i ran

sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

but with a lot of failures.

Following suggestions on the net, i installed these packages on the guest:

• xserver-xorg
  xserver-xorg-core
  build-essential

I also ran

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

but got the response:

linux-headers-4.8.0-22-generic is already the newest version.

The error message from VBoxLinuxAdditions.run talks about inability to find
/lib/modules/4.8.0-22-generic/build/include/linux/version.h
although the actual error as recorded in vboxadd-install.log looks like the
function mod_timer_pinned does not have a declaration.

According to the internet, this error (missing 'version.h' file) comes up from time to time (at least every few years), and it also came up in October and November of 2016, although i cannot tell what the solution is from googling. (Looks like the sufferers either fixed the problem, or gave up on it, but without leaving a trace on the net.)

One of my xubuntu colleagues has suggested that there's something wrong with the build path; another advised me to raise the question here.

So i'd appreciate any clues on how to get these guest additions to compile, and TIA!

dan

We don't support distro forks, only official builds from virtualbox.org. They change too many things and you would ask them for assistance.

But I can tell you that the missing version.h is not from VirtualBox. This is almost always an OS that does not have a release kernel with matching headers. Most OSes especially Ubuntu do not build out the headers properly to include all features until after a full release and that is where the missing version.h comes from. Other than that it might be build-essential or some kind of devel package. I have on occasion built the version.h file to work around this but here again this is not a virtualbox fix and as such out of the scope of this forum.

OK, thanks Perry, that sounds very reasonable from the point of view of sw maintenance.

So . . . is there a way i can install an official build along side my forked distro package?

Or, would i have to purge my forked distro package from the system in order to install an official build?

TIA.

Official and distro builds are not compatible so you would first need to purge the current build before you proceed with installing the official build. Also keep in mind what I said about the kernel packages.