[vbox-dev] Co-existence of distribution-installed Guest Additions and Oracle-provided ones

[Gianfranco Costamagna]

Hi Michael

>That is roughly what we had until recently, minus printing the exact
>command.  Seamlessly switching would be a big usability plus though.  My
>original idea was to make it possible to have two versions (distribution
>and ours) installed at once, and set symbolic links in /usr/bin and
>places to make the right one active.  Hans sensibly pointed out that
>this is likely to be tricky and error-prone, and this was his
>alternative suggestion.  Any thoughts?  So far, given that no one has
>taken this up yet, there is still time to improve.


Debian guest packages installs:
guest-x11 the vboxOGL implementation (for 3d, with the alternative switch)
guest-dkms the kernel modules
guest-source the source module for custom builds (it generates a deb with m-a)
guest-utils the mount/Service/Control files.

stuff like the kernel modules is not easily backuppable, or movable because
AFAIK there is no "alternative" for them.

moving them around the fs will make just things worse and break depmod I think)

G.