VirtualBox/Installation/Linux

Specific Instruction Vary depending on your distribution. The first step is to download the version that is correct for your distro. However, Debian and Red Hat based systems now have an automatic install/update option for the OSE.

Officially supported Linux distributions

 * Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 19.03 and 19.10
 * Debian GNU/Linux 9 ("Stretch") and 10 ("Buster")
 * Oracle Linux 6, 7 and 8
 * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7 and 8
 * Fedora 30 and 31
 * Gentoo Linux
 * SUSE Linux Enterprise server 12 and 15
 * openSUSE Leap 15.1

Note that Linux 2.4-based host OSes are no longer supported.

Installation for Debian Systems
These include Debian and Ubuntu

Building a Kernel Mod
See Below

Installation for Ubuntu
Open a terminal and type

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install virtualbox

and follow the prompts.

Installation for Red Hat based Systems
These Include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, and Fedora.

PUEL Edition
After downloading the rpm file for your distro, there are a number of methods of installation.

1. Double Click on the file, it should install VirtualBox 2. In a Terminal using YUM

Using YUM in a Terminal
Load up a terminal and change directory to the one where you saved the rpm. To continue beyond this point you will need root privileges. You will either need to be logged on as root (not recommended), su to root, or use sudo (if you have that configured). The following assumes that you are using sudo. If you are logged on as root or you used su then the instructions will work as shown. However, you may also exclude the "sudo" in front of the commands.

In the terminal type sudo yum localinstall *name*.rpm --nogpgcheck Replace *name* with the name of the rpm file.

Yum will load up and check for dependencies. After doing that it should ask if you want to install VirtualBox. Type 'Y' (without quotations) to continue. VirtualBox will now be installed on your machine.

Building a Kernel Mod
See Below

Building a Kernel Mod
See Below

Building a Kernel Mod
In order to run VirtualBox requires a Kernel Mod. VirtualBox installed a script that can build the mod for you. In order to do this you will require the Kernel Development Tools and GCC to be installed on your machine. Assuming you have those you may continue by running the following command in a terminal: sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

If all is successful the script to successfully compile and initialise a VirtualBox Kernel Mod. This mod should load automatically each time you reboot your host computer.

NOTE: You will need to rebuild the mod (using the script mentioned above) every time you update the Kernel.