Windows 10 guest fails to start in VirtualBox on Fedora 38

terry-duell · 11-03-2023, 11:38 PM

I've been struggling to find a way around this..
Attempting to start Windows 10 guest in Virtualbox, I get the following message...

Code:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is probably not loaded.You may not have kernel driver installed for kernel that is runnig, if so you may do as root: dnf install akmod-VirtualBox kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

So I try to run the suggested command...

Code:

$sudo dnf install akmod-VirtualBox kernel-devel-$(uname -r)
Package akmod-VirtualBox-7.0.12-1.fc38.x86_64 is already installed.
Package kernel-devel-6.5.8-200.fc38.x86_64 is already installed.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete!

The error message from Virtualbox went on to say...

Code:

If you installed VirtualBox packages and don't want reboot the system, you may need load the kernel driver, doing as root: akmods; systemctl restart vboxdrv.service

So I tried that command...

Code:

sudo akmods; systemctl restart vboxdrv.service
Checking kmods exist for 6.5.8-200.fc38.x86_64             [  OK  ]
Job for vboxdrv.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status vboxdrv.service" and "journalctl -xeu vboxdrv.service" for details.

The response to that was quite unintelligable, not much text but scattered over a few 'pages' of output, and quite difficult to capture.
It would seem that there have been a number of calls for help on this or similar issues, the responses to which I have tried to follow to no avail.

Anyone have any answers or ideas that might help?

Cheers,
Terry

wpeckham · 11-05-2023, 12:04 PM

Have you attempted to start up any OTHER operating systems under VB?

IT might help to understand if this is a problem with your VB install, or if it is specific to Windows as a client.

terry-duell · 11-05-2023, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wpeckham

Have you attempted to start up any OTHER operating systems under VB?

IT might help to understand if this is a problem with your VB install, or if it is specific to Windows as a client.

VB has been working fine prior to installing F38.
I have two VB guests, Win XP and Win 10. Both throw the same error message.
There have been a couple of VB updates since the F38 install, but the behaviour has not changed.
There are numerous posts on the web re similar issues.
Some have mentioned that Oracle have changed the way keys are handled. My VB is installed from Fedora repos, so I would guess the advice re keys wouldn't apply to VB from Fedora...not sure about that.

Cheers,
Terry

wpeckham · 11-05-2023, 04:41 PM

Well, for totally different bur distantly related reasons I stopped using Fedora long ago.
And recently I find I prefer QEMU under VirtualMachineManager over VirtualBox. Also I REALLY distrust Oracle!

If you have verified that VB on Fedora fails for you (and others), and there does not appear to be a fix or work-around, then do something else. It is not like you are devoid of other options!

Part of your problem is that Fedora is unstable and rapidly changing. Perhaps you need something that does not change and break things as often?

terry-duell · 11-05-2023, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wpeckham

Part of your problem is that Fedora is unstable and rapidly changing. Perhaps you need something that does not change and break things as often?

That's not my experience. I've been using Fedora for about 20 years, and rarely have any issues.
Thanks for your comments.

Cheers,
Terry

wpeckham · 11-05-2023, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by terry-duell

That's not my experience. I've been using Fedora for about 20 years, and rarely have any issues.
Thanks for your comments.

Cheers,
Terry

I was a user of RedHat Linux starting from RH 4.2. Fedora came along in 2009 or so when RH split RedHat Linux into RHEL and Fedora. I used both for years. I still used both on occasion (RHEL Professionally) up until IBM took over RH. Fedora had to be reloaded or replaced every 9 months or so, (For long there was a new release every 3 months like clockwork) and sometimes what you used or how you used it had to change. Things broke, and got fixed. If you stick with Fedora that is what you should expect, and if it does better than you expect then count yourself lucky.

Best of luck!

terry-duell · 11-15-2023, 05:04 PM

I finally have a solution...yet to determine if it is permanent solution.
In my case the fix has been to get into the BIOS and disable secure boot.
I had seen stories that this was the solution, but looking into BIOS options it looked like secure boot wasn't enabled...finally had another good poke around in BIOS and found it!

Cheers,
Terry