[sf-lug] Need help with VirtualBox on openSUSE and Feisty (or Gutsy)

[Tom Haddon]

On Sun, 2008-04-06 at 10:14 -0700, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
> hi,
> 
> Thanks for your detailed reply.  
> 
> On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 9:41 AM, Tom Haddon <tom at greenleaftech.net>
> wrote:
>         On Sun, 2008-04-06 at 09:04 -0700, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
>         > hi,
>         
>         
>         Have you applied any kernel updates? 
> 
> Well, if there have been kernel updates to either openSUSE 10.2 or
> Feisty since we installed them back after those distros were first
> released, then yes.  I have not deliberately applied any such updates,
> as I would not mess with the kernel unless it was part of an update.

Chances are about 100% that there have been kernel updates since the
original release, so if you've been applying system updates, that sounds
like the issue.

>  
>         Most likely you have a mismatch
>         between the VirtualBox kernel modules and your running kernel
>         which is
>         meaning that you're getting the message above. If this is the
>         case,
>         you'd need to either revert to the kernel that VirtualBox was
>         compiled
>         for, or rebuild the VirtualBox kernel module for your current
>         kernel.
> 
> k, thanks for that info.
>  
>         > On the Feisty box, I am just getting the message that there
>         is no
>         > Virtual Machine installed, and it is offering me to install
>         a new
>         > virtual machine.  I find that to be very odd, since Daniel
>         Gimpelevich
>         > did a good job of getting XP working under both machines.
>         
>         
>         Which user was it setup under? 
> 
> Ah, this question helped.  On Feisty, we set it up under one of the
> users which has access to sudo (username = kipp).  I typically do not
> use that kipp user account, nor do the students, because we do not
> want them to have sudo access.  VirtualBox work under that user, and I
> am now writing this email in Firefox in an XP machine running under
> Feisty.  So thanks for that.  We wanted to keep the login for this
> account secret, as we do not want the students to have access to a
> sudo-capable account.  They use a generic account (called newsroom)
> which does not have sudo access, nor does it have access to Synaptic
> or any of the other sudo powers under the System menu option. 
> 
> So thanks for reminding me of that sudo-capable account (called kipp).
> We could install Adobe under that account, and then just give the
> password only to the teacher.  But that does not give us very much
> flexibility for allowing the students to login by themselves and
> access Adobe.  So it would be good to get VB reinstalled under the
> generic account (called newsroom).
>  
>         What do you see
>         under /home/<that_user>/.VirtualBox/Machines ? 
> 
> kipp at ubuntu:~$ cd .VirtualBox/Machines/
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$ ls -l
> total 4
> drwxr-xr-x 4 kipp kipp 4096 2007-08-24 00:33 xp
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$ 
> 
>  
>         What you get as the
>         output of:
>         
>         uname -a
> 
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$ uname -a
> Linux ubuntu 2.6.20-16-lowlatency #2 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jun 7 20:23:03
> UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$
>  
>         dpkg --list | grep virtual
> 
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$ dpkg --list | grep virtual
> ii  kvm                                           16-1ubuntu2
> Full virtualization on x86 hardware
> ii  libgnomevfs2-0                                2.18.1-0ubuntu1
> GNOME virtual file-system (runtime libraries
> ii  libgnomevfs2-bin                              2.18.1-0ubuntu1
> GNOME virtual file-system (support binaries)
> ii  libgnomevfs2-common                           2.18.1-0ubuntu1
> GNOME virtual file-system (common files)
> ii  libgnomevfs2-extra                            2.18.1-0ubuntu1
> GNOME virtual file-system (extra modules)
> ii  virtualbox
> 1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_feisty              innotek VirtualBox
> kipp at ubuntu:~/.VirtualBox/Machines$ 
> 
>  
>         Also, it might be worth looking to upgrade this machine to
>         gutsy (or
>         waiting a little while and going to hardy when it comes out at
>         the end
>         of this month), as VirtualBox is now packaged as part of the
>         Ubuntu
>         repositories, which means you don't have to worry about this
>         kind of
>         stuff...
>         
> 
> Is that true for both Gutsy as well as Hardy?  

It is, yes.

> I might just have to blow away openSUSE (temporarily) and install
> Gusty on the openSUSE box, because things move really quickly in this
> school.  The science teacher has been waiting for some time to do this
> video editing work, and needs to make his lesson plan.  If he can't
> get his lesson plan solidified soon, he is likely to disregard the
> Linux solutions, and conclude that it is not worth his time.  This
> science teacher has been one of the key advocates for Free Software at
> this school, and so I am very much interested in keeping him satisfied
> with our Free Software solutions.  He has actually said that he is
> willing to explore both Cinelerra and Kino as alternatives to Adobe,
> which I think would be awesome.  
>  
> Thanks for your rapid reply, Tom.  

No problem, glad it was of some use.

Thanks, Tom