FYI - VBox 5.16 Guest Additions - Compiling error hopefully non-critical

English Virtualization
1

This is just informational for people running openSUSE in a Guest on VBox 5.

Although this was discovered on 13.2, it probably applies to all versions of openSUSE.

If you install VBox Guest additions using the VBox Guest Additions ISO,
As usual it will require

gcc
kernel-devel

Although there is some dispute in other threads whether kernel-devel really does automatically also select the kernel-devel packages for detected installed kernels(It always has for me which has been a big time saver), currently it seems 13.2 is not providing those kernel flavor specific packages (eg kernel-desktop-devel-version) in the OSS which is something new I’ve never seen before.

This poses a problem, hopefully only cosmetic when compiling the kernel modules for Virtualbox 5.16 Guest Additions (My guess same should be observed for other versions of VBox). Compiling modules will report as failed due to missing kernel headers yet the individual modules will report as successfully built and installed.

For the current kernel, I also tested installing the special 13.2 kernel:standard repo which contains the specific missing kernel-desktop-devel package, but re-compiling the VBox Guest Additions with the missing package still throws the same error.

Bottom Line:
So, it’s hoped that the bottom line is the successfully built and installed modules and not the earlier error about the missing headers.

TSU

2

What are you talking about?

kernel-desktop-devel is available in the standard 13.2 repos:

# zypper se -s kernel-desktop-devel
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S | Name                 | Type    | Version     | Arch   | Repository          
--+----------------------+---------+-------------+--------+---------------------
i | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-35.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
i | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-32.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-29.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-24.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-21.1 | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-7.1  | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.6-2.1  | x86_64 | openSUSE-13.2-1.28  
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-35.1 | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-32.1 | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-29.1 | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-24.1 | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-21.1 | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.7-7.1  | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-Update
v | kernel-desktop-devel | package | 3.16.6-2.1  | i686   | openSUSE-13.2-1.28
#
3

Agreed,
All seems to be working as expected <today>.

Yesterday, when I discovered that kernel-desktop-devel was missing, I really went to town trying to figure it out… It was not only missing doing a zypper search, it also wasn’t to be found browsing the repo using a web browser. I’m <sure> it was really missing yesterday, but is there today.

So,
With the verified required dependencies installed, I re-installed the VBox Guest Additions and everything went fine without incident or error.

TSU

4

My zypper output is from <yesterday>.

And I doubt that packages mysteriously disappear from the update repo and reappear again a day (or some hours) later…

Although maybe this might have been caused by a broken/inconsistent mirror.

So,
With the verified required dependencies installed, I re-installed the VBox Guest Additions and everything went fine without incident or error.

Good.