Pure Oracle VirtualBox for OpenSUSE 15.6 - I got it build

Since the passing of Larry Finger, I have been trying to get Oracle VirtualBox to work with 15.6.
/sbin/vboxconfig would not compile - so no VirtualBox from Oracle.

I worked with Oracle and was given the diff file that made 15.6 compile correctly at Oracle, but it would not compile on 15.6, it would on Tumbleweed.

After about 3 days of trying to figure out why opensuse156 was not known, I discovered that it looks for opensuse153. I found all the references to oracle153 and fixed the code to generate 15.5 and 15.6 code correctly. It appears that Oracle builds VirtualBox for OpenSUSE on 15.3.

If you want the rpm for Oracle VirtualBox 7.0.18 for OpenSUSE 15.6 please PM me and I will created a TransferXL link for you do download the rpm. It is about 55MB in size.

1 Like

As you are listed as one of the maintainers of VirtualBox at OBS, do you not plan to provide it there, so that it gets distributed via the official repos?

The 1st step to doing an OpenSUSE OBS version is to get a Oracle Version to test against.
I could not test against Oracle, and Oracle worked with me to provide the patch they are going to use in 7.0.20 to fix the sbin/vboxconfig issue (some missing kernel hooks that moved or added more options to fix CVE issues). I had to figure out how to add them to 7.0.18.

I will try to get OBS working and submitted to rollout. I am not anywhere as good as Larry Finger was at fixing issues with OBS to make Oracle code compile clean.

Oracle thinks they solved the signature issue in their rpm so that if you install their MOK, you can run secure boot.

I know I will need help with OBS. Larry Finger had 20 years of knowledge and knew exactly what to do to fix a problem. The VirtualBox source is like a complete OS and there are drivers for everything that it can do. It takes 22 minutes to compile on a 20 core i7-12000T. It takes longer in OBS and finding the reason it failed takes a while. I am not sure I will be able to.

I did do the 7.0.18 build that is in the repos. Larry Finger created the 7.0.18 patch that was needed to make it work with Tumbleweed. I am not a Kernel core follower, so we may have to wait until Oracle figures out what changed in the kernel to get a patch - the good news is Fedora also has the same issues as Tumbleweed and they post their code online for everyone to see. I hope I can follow it.

I am 72 years old and have not done much coding since the 1970’s. I mostly figured out what went wrong and came up with repeatable failures for developers to fix the problem. I spent my last working years before being retired (not my choice) creating backups and bare iron restores for Walmart (yes AIX, MPRAS, HPUX, Linux and Windows XP). I have test machines with Tumbleweed, OpenSUSE 15.6 and 15.6 running Oracle Code and 12 Virtual machines one each of Windows 10, Windows 11, XP, OpenSUSE 15.6, Slowroll, Tumbleweed Gnome and KDE, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu and Manjaro to test various things like shared folders, cut and paste, screens and save & restore VM.

I agree, that would be the preferred way of retrieving it, or at a minimum, building it in a personal repo and then inviting experienced users to test it to ensure that it’s working properly - rather than distributing it privately using a non-openSUSE infrastructure element.

For a personal repo to work it has to be built in OBS, am I correct?

As far as I know, yes - but it would also be good for those testing to be able to see the build results.

I have loaded it into OBS. I had a lot of trouble getting it to go - it appears that anytime they build for a new kernel, all my work is for naught and I have to do it again as it will not be allowed to check in since something changed.

has the Oracle provided 15.6 patches and removed all the temporary patches to make 15.6 work that were in the build.

1 Like

Hello,

I am confused by this thread. How does the virtualbox build discussed in this thread differ from the build available in the repositories?

S | Name                           | Type    | Version                           | Arch   | Repository
--+--------------------------------+---------+-----------------------------------+--------+----------------
  | python3-virtualbox             | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox                     | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-devel               | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-guest-desktop-icons | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | noarch | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-guest-source        | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | noarch | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-guest-tools         | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-host-source         | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | noarch | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-kmp-default         | package | 7.0.18_k6.4.0_150600.21-lp156.1.4 | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-qt                  | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-vnc                 | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)
  | virtualbox-websrv              | package | 7.0.18-lp156.1.6                  | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.6)

I have submitted the code to Factory - It takes a while for it to get out to the repos.

The code that is currently in use has code that Larry Finger kludged to get 15.6 to work. It does work but it did not contain the fixes that Oracle came up with to fix 15.6 virtualbox-kmp-default.

My OBS branch has the rpm’s that have Oracle fixes for 15.6. I have tested them and they do work. For support of problems, I need to use their code and not locally derived fixes that replaced Oracle code. If there are issues, Oracle will find and fix the problem. I cannot possible look at all 100,000+ parts of VirtualBox to fix it. I can script code to build VirtualBox with OBS that can be used in OpenSUSE. I cannot code fixes to VirtualBox - I have no idea where to start. It pretty much builds everything that is in Linux to support guests operating systems.

If you want Oracle VirtualBox code in your OpenSUSE - then you can install from my OBS project.

Eventually, it will be in the OpenSUSE repos after they approve and QA it. I have got reports that the Tumbleweed works fine. I am using it on 15.6 and Tumbleweed right now.

Thank you for the clarification and the time spent getting the fixes from Oracle.

Hopefully, the new code will be in the repos before I next need virtualbox.

Is this the current location for this build?

https://software.opensuse.org/download/package?package=virtualbox&project=Virtualization

I have 7.0.20 in larryr:branches:Virtualization/virtualbox

it is also in osc branch Virtualization virtualbox

for reason that I do not understand - it requires kernel-longterm for slowroll and not kernel-default.

that is where it goes after it passes QA. I do not know if it installs via zypper from there but the rpm does work for 7.0.20.

Is kernel-default OK for Leap?

Thanks Larry!

Longterm is only for slowroll (and can be forced on tumbleweed)

It installed without errors using zypper:

ox@orca$ zypper repos -d  2
Alias          : Virtualization
Name           : Virtualization (15.6)
URI            : https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization/15.6/
Enabled        : Yes
GPG Check      : (r ) Yes
Priority       : 99 (default priority)
Autorefresh    : On
Keep Packages  : Off
Type           : rpm-md
GPG Key URI    : https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization/15.6/repodata/repomd.xml.key
Path Prefix    : 
Parent Service : 
Keywords       : ---
Repo Info Path : /etc/zypp/repos.d/Virtualization.repo
MD Cache Path  : /var/cache/zypp/raw/Virtualization

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.