vboxdrv will not load into an OpenSolaris 2008.5 Dom0 -> improve the error message

[Andrew Lentvorski]

As the summary says, if you try to run VirtualBox under an OpenSolaris Dom0, the vboxdrv module will refuse to load.

My particular setup is an OpenSolaris 2008.5 system running in 64-bit mode.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

xVM/Xen and VirtualBox are not comparible, so don't use it in a dom0.

[Andrew Lentvorski]

Comparable or compatible? I presume you mean *compatible*. Right?

What's the rationale? Lots of installations are starting to use xVM. xVM and VirtualBox should be orthogonal systems. qemu, for example, seems to have no problem running in a Linux Dom0 (i'm about to try OpenSolaris).

At the very least, you need to put a big red flag on this that it doesn't work under an xVM kernel. Preferably in the post-install scripts. The add_drv error message is along the lines of "can't find module" rather than "incompatible kernel".

It takes a pretty stubborn individual to dig through to discover "Incompatible with xVM" as opposed to "VirtualBox Broken".

[Sander van Leeuwen]

They are simply not compatible on a technical level. If you want to blame somebody, then you can point the finger at Xen. QEmu is an emulator, not a virtualizer. The k-qemu extension does not work either on any Xen based system. Neither does VMWare.

I agree there should be a more sensible warning.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

Implemented this some time ago.