Think outside the box: Getting VirtualBox 2.x running in Jaunty

Here’s a quick guide on getting VirtualBox 2.x running in Ubuntu 9.04.

First make sure you add the VirtualBox repositorys to your sources:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.lst

Then add the following to the top of the file:

# VirtualBox Intrepid Repository
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free

The Jaunty repository should be made available soon, in the meantime the intrepid release will work. Next we need to add the Sun public key:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add –

This will download the key and add it to your keychain. Now we need to update our sources so Aptitude knows whats around.

sudo aptitude update

Next we need to download some build tools so we can build the kernel modules properly.

sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

This will download the latest build tools and the headers for the kernel your running. Next lets grab the VirtualBox distribution.

You can elect to use the Open Source Edition (virtualbox-ose) or the Free Edition (virtualbox-2.2). Differences between the two are specified on the VirtualBox site.

sudo aptitude install virtualbox-2.2

Then you may find that the VirtualBox Driver may fail to install. Here is where we manually do it.

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

This will stop any existing modules, remove the netfilter and virtualbox kernels, rebuild and start the modules for you.

From this point on you can use VirtualBox. Find it in Applications > System Tools > VirtualBox.