VirtualBox

Version 22 (modified by jose, 17 years ago) ( diff )

SDL

Build instructions

This page describes how to build VirtualBox OSE, once you have gotten its source code from our Subversion server, as described on the Downloads page).

The sources are the same, no matter whether you build on Linux or Windows. But the build instructions differ.

To build, use the kmk command after you have entered our development environment. This is the make command of kBuild, our homegrown build system. (To avoid confusion with an already installed make program, our make has been renamed to kmk). With kBuild, the BUILD_TYPE environment variable determines what type is built and can be release (enable compiler optimizations, strip debug and profiling code), debug (for debugging) or profile (for profiling). The default is release.

The default build target is all, which produces all executables in the out/{platform}/{release|debug}/ directories. If you add the packing target, an installation package is built according to the requirements of your platform (see below).

Linux hosts

While we try to not favor any distribution, we only build with certain distributions. This includes Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Things should not be much different for other distributions though. If you want to supply specific build instructions (especially package names) for other distributions, please contact InnoTek.

Prerequisites on Linux

You need:

  • GCC 3.2.3 or later (when using GCC 4.x, some precompiled objects will be used for the recompiler as they currently require GCC 3.x)
  • as86 (real mode assembler)
  • bcc (Bruce Evans C Compiler)
  • IASL (Intel ACPI compiler)
  • xsltproc (libxslt, XML style sheet processor)
  • libxerces (Xerces XML parser)
  • libxalan (Xalan XSL library, depends on Xerces)
  • Qt 3.3.x (with x >= 5 if possible)
  • libIDL
  • Relatively recent WINE (VirtualBox uses some Win32 executables during the build process but this is optional)
  • libSDL (with sdl-ttf)
  • Optional: Doxygen 1.4+

On Debian, the following packets are required: 

apt-get install bcc iasl xsltproc xalan libxalan110-dev uuid-dev zlib1g-dev libsdl1.2-dev libxcursor-dev libqt3-headers

On Gentoo, run this: 

emerge -uav =qt-3* libIDL wine blackdown-jdk libsdl sdl-ttf DirectFB doxygen

Building on Linux

  1. Change to the root directory of the sources and execute the configure script: ./configure. If it finds everything it needs, it will create a file called 'Config.kmkconf' containing paths to the various tools on your system. Also, it will create an environment setup script called configure.sh. This step only has to be done once (if something changes in your build tool setup, you might have to repeat it but keep in mind that both output files will be overwritten).
  1. Whenever you want to build VirtualBox, you have to open a shell and source the generated environment setup script 'configure.sh', i.e. do 
    . ./configure.sh
  1. To build a release package, type kmk all packing. This produces the installation package out/linux/release/bin/VirtualBox.run. (If you want to build a debug version, type kmk BUILD_TYPE=debug all packing.)
  1. To install this package on your system, run it (as the superuser). So, for example, cd out/linux/release/bin and sudo sh VirtualBox.run install.

Running your installed build on Linux

The command sequence outlined above installs VirtualBox in /opt/VirtualBox-<version> and the Linux kernel module in lib/modules. A shell script wrapper called VBox.sh will be installed and symlinked to from /usr/bin/VirtualBox (and other symlinks), so you should be able to run VirtualBox from everywhere. You will need to load the Linux kernel module before running VirtualBox, so a modprobe vboxdrv will also be necessary.

Windows hosts

Prerequisites on Windows

To create the installation package:

Using Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition

It could be possible to build VirtualBox using the express edition, but the lack of ATL (among other things) means serious trouble since VirtualBox is making use of ATL.

List of problems and possible workarounds:

  1. It does not include the Platform SDK (PSDK), however the express edition installation guide urge you to install it. If you didn't start here:
    ​http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/
  2. It does not include the ATL headers and libraries.
    A possible workaround could be to point VirtualBox to the ATL headers and libraries that's shipped with the Windows DDK. Unfortunately this doesn't work ATM since the DDK version is older than the one VirtualBox is developed with.
    To tell the build system where to find the ATL headers and libraries append the following lines to your Config.kmkconf or Config.kmklocal file:     
    PATH_TOOL_VCC80X86_ATLMFC_INC = $(PATH_SDK_W2K3DDKX86)/inc/atl30
PATH_TOOL_VCC80X86_ATLMFC_LIB = $(PATH_SDK_W2K3DDKX86)/lib/atl/i386/
PATH_TOOL_VCC80AMD64_ATLMFC_INC = $(PATH_SDK_W2K3DDKAMD64)/inc/atl30
PATH_TOOL_VCC80AMD64_ATLMFC_LIB = $(PATH_SDK_W2K3DDKAMD64)/lib/atl/amd64/
    Another option is to disable the components that depends on the ATL headers / libraries. Unfortunately quite a bit will have to be disabled (the only front end left will be VBoxBFE for instance). Add the following to your Config.kmkconf or Config.kmklocal file: 
    VBOX_CFG_MAIN=
VBOX_SDLGUI=
VBOX_QTGUI=
VBOX_WITH_DEBUGGER=
  3. It does not include mt.exe. This tool can be found in the PSDK, but you need to point the build system to it by appending the following lines to your Config.kmkconf or Config.kmklocal file: 
    TOOL_VCC80X86_MT = $(PATH_SDK_WIN32SDK)/bin/mt.exe
TOOL_VCC80AMD64_MT = $(PATH_SDK_WIN64SDK)/bin/mt.exe

You can get the Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition here: ​http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/

Building on Windows

  1. Change to the root directory and execute our configure script to setup your build environment: wscript configure.vbs. If The script finds all the tools necessary, it will output two files: Config.kmkconf containing information where to find the tools on your system and configure.bat, a batch file to setup your environment for building VirtualBox. You only have to execute this step once, unless something about your tools changes in which case you have to repeat the above step. Keep in mind that the script always overwrites the two generated files so you should not manually edit them.
  1. Change to the root directory of the sources and enter our build shell environment: configure.bat.
  1. To build a release package, type kmk all packing. This produces the installation package out\windows\release\bin\VirtualBox.msi. If you want to build a debug version, enter kmk BUILD_TYPE=debug all packing.
  1. To install this package on your system, double-click on it to feed it into Windows Installer. If this fails for any reason, explicitly running msiexec /i VirtualBox.msi /l* install.log produces a log file which may hint at the cause.

Some notes:

During development it may be useful to register the necessary components by hand. Use the following commands with the windows host: 

regsvr32 VBoxC.DLL
VBoxSVC /RegServer
SUPUninstall
SUPInstall

For uninstallation: 

regsvr32 /u VBoxC.DLL
VBoxSVC /UnregServer
SUPUninstall

When changing files be sure to have first a look in Windows Taskmanager if the VBoxSVC server is still running. This may happen if VirtualBox didn't terminate correctly. A quicker alternative is to get pskill from ​http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsKill.html and simply kill VBoxSVC when uncertain whether it's running or not: 

pskill VBoxSVC
Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.

© 2023 Oracle
Contact – Privacy policy – Terms of Use