Cannot recompile VirtualBox kernel module with Debian precompiled kernel 2.6.38-2-686

[jors]

On Debian Squeeze, when installing and using precompiled kernel 2.6.38-2-686, the VirtualBox kernel module fails to recompile:

mini:/home/jors# uname -r
2.6.38-2-686
mini:/home/jors# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules:.
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules:.
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS:
Failed, trying without DKMS ... failed!
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules:
Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong ... failed!
mini:/home/jors#

The vbox-install.log says the following:

mini:/home/jors# cat /var/log/vbox-install.log
Makefile:178: *** Error: /usr/src/linux (version 2.6.38) does not match the current kernel (version 2.6.38-2-686).  Alto.
mini:/home/jors#

When showing installed precompiled kernel headers information with dpkg, it seems like some versioning info is wrong. First column version info matches current running kernel, but not second column version info, as you can see here:

mini:/home/jors# dpkg -l linux-headers-2.6.38-2-686
Deseado=Desconocido/Instalar/Eliminar/Purgar/Retener
| Estado=No/Instalado/Config-files/Desempaquetado/Medio-conf/Medio-inst/espera-disparo/pendiente-disparo
|/ Err?=(ninguno)/Requiere-reinst (Estado,Err: mayúsc.=malo)
||/ Nombre                        Versión                      Descripción
+++-=============================-=============================-==========================================================================
ii  linux-headers-2.6.38-2-686    2.6.38-3                      Header files for Linux 2.6.38-2-686
mini:/home/jors#

Could this last tip be the problem's root? Any workaround to bypass this temporally?

[jors]

VirtualBox install log

[Frank Mehnert]

Known issue with 2.6.38, will be fixed in the next maintenance release. As a workaround you can manually edit the relevant Makefiles and remove that check as it does not more with 2.6.38 anymore.

[jors]

Ok frank, thanks!

If someone wants to make it run right now (warning, following paths are for Debian), comment the following code block on files vboxdrv/Makefile, vboxnetadp/Makefile and vboxnetflt/Makefile (located at /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxhost):

 # check if versions match -- works only for later 2.6 kernels
 #VBOX_KERN_VER := $(shell $(MAKE) -sC $(KERN_DIR) --no-print-directory kernelrelease 2> /dev/null || true)
 #ifneq ($(VBOX_KERN_VER),)
 # ifneq ($(VBOX_KERN_VER),$(shell uname -r))
 #  $(error Error: /usr/src/linux (version $(VBOX_KERN_VER)) does not match \
 #                 the current kernel (version $(shell uname -r)))
 # endif
 #endif

And then you can recompile the VirtualBox kernel module as always with /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup. Have fun!