Installing 5.1.14 and Virtalbox GUI freezes at startup

[abcuser]

Hi,
on my host I have got Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS (Ubuntu Trusty) 64-bit and so far I was running VirtualBox 4.3.38 64-bit with VirtualBox GUI without a problem.

Today I have decided to upgrade VirtualBox to the latest version VirtualBox 5.1.14 64-bit, but I got into a trouble not able to start VirtualBox GUI after successful install.

I did the following:
1. I have uninstalled VirtualBox 4.3.38

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sudo dpkg -P virtualbox-4.3

2. I have autoremove all unneeded files

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sudo apt-get autoremove

3. I have restarted host machine (just in case)

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sudo reboot

4. I have tried to install VirtualBox 5.1.14

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sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.1_5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty_amd64.deb

5. Install failed because of dependencies. I installed dependencies

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sudo apt-get -f install

6. Install VirtualBox 5.1.14, by repeating step 4. Full output:

sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.1_5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty_amd64.deb
(Reading database ... 131151 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack virtualbox-5.1_5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking virtualbox-5.1 (5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty) over (5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty) ...
Setting up virtualbox-5.1 (5.1.14-112924~Ubuntu~trusty) ...
addgroup: The group `vboxusers' already exists as a system group. Exiting.
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-16) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.13-1) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.2-0ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.54ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-0ubuntu6.9) ...

It looks everything fine to me so far.

7. I tried to start VirtualBox GUI

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virtualbox

Now a problem: Nothing happens. Shell window just stays black and no error or anything else. Just looks like something is going to be started, but it is not. I waited like 10 minutes and still nothing.
Now I have removed VirtualBox 5.1.14 and installed back VirtualBox 4.3.38 and running virtualbox from shell window and VirtualBox GUI starts up instantly.

Any idea what may be wrong with VirtualBox 5.1.14 on my computer?

[Perryg]

Qt and GCC from the original install are probably out of date for the 5.1.* series of VirtualBox.

Below versions of each should work.

• gcc version 4.9.4
  Using Qt version 5.3.2

[abcuser]

1. How to install those packages on Ubuntu 14.04?
2. Why doesn't VirtualBox installation has package dependencies on those packages, so they would be automatically installed if missing?

[Perryg]

AFAIK the dependencies that were missing should have been listed when you saw the notice. Ubuntu does not backport them by default and I have no idea why but they do make them available in ppa. You should be able to find them there.

[abcuser]

@Perryg, I can't find any PPA. Did you meant external VirtualBox repository?

I followed the following instructions https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads in section "Debian-based Linux distributions". Problem is exactly the same! When I type-in "virtualbox" nothing happens, black screen of shell with no error. This got to be related to some change in VirtualBox GUI. Like I see on web it was change between Qt4 to Qt5. It looks to me like a "dependency hell" problem.

By the way, I am using Ubuntu Server 14.04.5 LTS.

Any additional idea how to install?

P.S. I have reverted back to VirtualBox 4.3.38, which is working without a problem.

[Perryg]

Yes the dependencies would come from the host OS ppa not VirtualBox since the issue is older OS packages that are not compatible with the newer code from VBox. They switched to qt5 when they released 5.*. I still have a 14.* server running VBox with 5.1.* and installed them from Ubuntu. IIRC the qt was the hardest because of the ppa and had to work through a few permission issue but found out later it would have been better to purge qt before installing the release I got from the ppa. YMMV on that though.

[abcuser]

@Perryg, can you write which PPA are you talking about and if possible some instructions web page or some step-by-step instructions how to install VirtualBox 5.1 on Ubuntu 14.04.

[Perryg]

https://launchpad.net/~beineri/+archive ... 532-trusty

But now that I remember more it did work but had the issues I mentioned above. Since it installed to /opt and not the default location it caused permission issues. I finally just compiled my own and should have done that from the beginning like I normally do. This is not for everyone though as it does get complicated.

[abcuser]

@Perryg, compiling for yourself can be risky for stability of the system, because there is no evidence in package manager that tells that software was upgraded to new version.

I see less pain to upgrade Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04. I see Qt5 is supported in Ubuntu 16.04. Any additional special problem with VirtualBox 5.1 and Ubuntu 16.04 (the ones that appear on all installations)?

[Perryg]

That is assuming that one actually uses a package manager.
I don't have any issues with my 16.04 test units but do not push them like I do my dev or prod boxes. I also never upgrade an OS but install new. I had way too many conflicts with upgrades to trust them. My standard installs use special partitioned installs to keep ~/ in a separated partition as well as /opt where I have my own packages I want to retain. These units of mine are still in the 14.04 area because they work and will for some time to go.