VBox installation problems
 

I have installed VBox from several sources, the last being from Slackbuilds. Each time i have erased prior installs to do a new one. Every time i get the 'run /etc/*** setup' message. Running the program goes fine till the end when it fails. The following message is from vbox-install.log:
Makefile:158: *** Error: /usr/src/linux (version 2.6.29.6-smp) does not match the current kernel (version 2.6.29.6). $

I am now lost in the outer darkness, floating in ignorance. Any ideas?

$ cd /usr/src/
$ ln -sf linux-2.6.29.6 linux

as root, and then try again

Did so and got the exact same response.

As you are repointing the "linux" shortcut to a different kernel, you will need to reboot to use the new kernel.

Re-booting makes no difference. Running vboxdrv setup gives the same results as before. At boot am getting the message that 'Vbox kernel module failed' - twice ( per boot ), Vbox host networking is okay, and Vbox additions failed (modprobe vboxadd failed).

At slackbuilds.org, under virtualbox-kernel it says:

"To build the package for a kernel different from the running one,
start the script setting the KERNEL variable as in
KERNEL=2.6.29.6 ./virtualbox-kernel.SlackBuild"

Did you follow those directions? Maybe it was built for the wrong kernel because /usr/src/linux pointed to the wrong directory? Try rebuilding with that variable set

You can download the virtualbox source from their website and compile it yourself. Not much to do, just run the script and it will guide you through the setup process. Plus you will be getting PUEL and not the OSS version, which has more features.
Also what's the output of:

This is a confusing advice. Please be careful about what device you give!
The "virtualbox source" is OSE (Open Source Edition), which is definitely not easy to build. You should really use the SlackBuild here. There is no automatic installer script for OSE, and if you mean the SlackBuilds, well, there's not much guidance there.

That link is irrelevant for most scripts. Nowadays almost everyone look for the kernel in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/{build.source}, which are symlinks to the correct kernel source dir, if it exists.

Please, if you use the SlackBuilds DON'T use rc.vboxdrv setup! Also, seeing it still works with the packages created from the SlackBuilds means you have some stale init scripts for it in /etc/rc.d. Make sure to use the correct ones (.new).
As to your initial problem, you are using the non-smp kernel with the smp-source. You have to reconfigure your source for the non-smp kernel. See http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackwar...sdk/README.TXT for details.

I don't understand your post a little bit. You can download the VirtualBox PUEL version from here http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads. I hope you knew that there are 2 versions of Vbox? Slackbuilds.org just has the OSE version 3.0.10. Anyways, I have always used the vbox package from there and compiled it myself in slackware and in other distros. It's an easy task and works perfectly. Please try it yourself before commenting.

Regards.

That's understandable.

I am perfectly aware of that

Here's what you don't understand. PUEL is BINARY. It runs an installer which copies BINARIES into the system. This is far away from compiling something. The only thing which is indeed compiled also in PUEL is the kernel module, but that's by far not all of VirtualBox.

Your advice was confusing in the way that you suggested downloading the SOURCE from the website and compile it to get the PUEL version of VirtualBox, which is utter nonsense. It's either download source + compile to get OSE, or download binary to get PUEL.

Yes, I had by mistake mentioned "source" in my first post, apologies for that. But getting the PUEL package and installing it is a pretty simple task and provides you with more features. You don't necessarily need to depend on slackbuilds to make it work. That is the point I was trying to make.

Regards

ppr:kut two questions for you.
1: I looked at the link you suggested, it says to run the script in 'this' directory but does not name the directory. Which one do I use.
2: you say not to use the old rc.vboxdrv. Does this mean I should delete that and rename the .new?

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

"This" means the directory that contains the README, for example the "extra/linux-2.6.29.6-nosmp-sdk/" folder on the Slackware 13 install medium.

In case you didn't modify that file by hand, which I suppose is the case, yes.
Otherwise you would look at the differences between the current file and the .new and merge them where appropriate.

Did you rebuild your kernel? I've had that problem when I started to build a kernel and then did not complete the build and install the kernel.

I've been able to fix it by starting to build the current kernel configuration to create the headers.

su -
cd /usr/src/linux
make mrproper
make menuconfig

Choose the menu option to load a configuration from an alternate location. If you're using a standard kernel that you installed then specify this location.

/boot/config

That should be soft linked to the configuration for the installed kernel. If you have a different configuration because you built a kernel then load the correct configuration.

Select the option to save the configuration and then enter the standard name for the file.

.config

Exit from menuconfig. Start building the kernel.

make clean all

You can either wait for the kernel to completely build or you can wait a minute or so and then cancel the kernel build with Ctrl C.

The correct header files should be available for VirtualBox.

If you complete the kernel build then you can install the kernel and modules that you built.

make modules_install
cp /boot/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz-old
cp /boot/System.map /boot/System-old.map
rm /boot/vmlinuz
rm /boot/System.map
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz
cp /usr/src/linux/System.map /boot/System.map

Your current "vmlinuz" and "System.map" may be soft links so the "rm" commands are important to break the soft links and avoid overwriting the linked files (usually a standard kernel version). If you know that you have soft links you can omit the first two "cp" commands that make a backup copy of the kernel. Just remove the soft links with "rm".

There is a community forum on the VirtualBox site where you may also find help installing and using VirtualBox.