Opened 9 years ago
Last modified 9 years ago
#14098 new enhancement
Automated kernel modules recompilation
| Reported by: | jbx | Owned by: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Component: | other | Version: | VirtualBox 4.3.26 |
| Keywords: | kernel module recompilation | Cc: | |
| Guest type: | Windows | Host type: | Linux |
Description
Whenever the host OS is updated (in my case Ubuntu), VirtualBox is not able to start my VM and brings up a weird error. A popup then appears prompting me to do sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
If VirtualBox knows that this is needed, why doesn't it just do it itself? Maybe just showing a prompt with a more user-friendly message saying 'VirtualBox needs to recompile its kernel modules, probably due to a recent OS system update. Confirm?' and the user just presses OK and its done automatically?
At the moment this process is really annoying:
- You have to copy the command to run from the message box.
- You have to open a terminal window and paste it but NOT press enter, since Virtual Box is still running. If on the other hand you close Virtual Box before pasting the clipboard info is lost.
- Close VirtualBox
- Press enter, wait for Kernel module recompilation.
- Start VirtualBox.
This could immensely be simplified from a user point of view if when the message is shown and the user confirms, VirtualBox automatically closes, recompiles the kernel modules and restarts.
It's not a job of a script in /etc/init.d to do time-consuming tasks like compiling kernel modules. The user could be confused as it takes much longer to boot than usual (remember, most Linux distributions show a nice splash screen and it's not obvious what's going on). The better fix is to install DKMS which does the kernel compile part in a more standardized way.