[vbox-dev] Guest Additions, co-existence of distribution and upstream versions

[Larry Finger]

On 11/11/2015 07:18 AM, Michael Thayer wrote:
>
>
> On 09.11.2015 11:46, Michael Thayer wrote:
>> Dear All (especially maintainers of distributions Additions packages),
>>
>> I have been thinking again about our old problem with the Guest
>> Additions, namely how a user can simply install (i.e. update) the
>> "native" Additions which come with VirtualBox without interfering with
>> the packaging system if the guest system they are using comes with
>> Additions pre-installed.  My latest musings are something along these lines:
>>
>>     * All files installed by the Additions would be in a single folder
>> (/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-<version> for the native package, and e.g.
>> /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions for a distribution package).
>>     * The Additions would have contain a set-up script, which distribution
>> packages could run as part of their post-install, which would build and
>> install (to /var/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions, not to the standard kernel
>> module folders) the kernel modules and put symlinks into the Additions
>> folder in place for /usr/bin/VBoxClient and others.
>>     * The set-up script would also install an uninstall script as
>> /var/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/uninstall.sh or similar which would reverse
>> the effect of the set-up script and allow in particular simple upgrading
>> of a distribution package to a native one without needing to touch any
>> files managed by the packaging system.  If this was present it would be
>> called at the start of the set-up script as part of an upgrade.
>>
>> Do any of the relevent people (Gianfranco?  Larry?  Sérgio?  Who else?)
>> like or dislike any of this, or have better suggestions?  I see that it
>> would notably go against the trend of separating the kernel modules into
>> their own package or even putting them into the kernel package like
>> Ubuntu does.  And it would not allow upgrading from earlier distribution
>> packages - we would continue to ask the users to uninstall them
>> manually, which is the safest but not the user-friendliest solution.
>
> So far no one seems to have any opinions here, so when I have time I
> will implement that.  Another point which occurs to me is that even if a
> distribution does provide the kernel modules as part of their kernel
> package, and if I do work to make sure that they can be unloaded at
> run-time, then it would be trivial to just unload them and replace them
> with ours at boot time.

Sorry that I did not answer in time. As I am new in as maintainer of VirtualBox 
in openSUSE, I do not understand all the ramifications of what you are 
proposing. The only VB modules we install by default are the guest additions. 
They are necessary with openSUSE in a guest machine, and due to an unknown bug, 
they are also installed in real machines as well. If problems show up between 
your packaging and ours, I will be sure to contact you for help. :)

Larry