[plug] Running ubuntu 8.10 in virtualbox - guest additions

[Daniel Pittman]

Peter Sutter <sutterp at sopac.com.au> writes:

> The system running virtualbox is SuSE 10.2, virtualbox is InnoTek
> VirtualBox 1.5.6.
>
> The instance I try to run is Ubuntu 8.10 and 8.04. Both start OK, but
> I can't get the guest additions running, and this is needed for
> 'shared folders'.
>
> There appear two ways to use the guest additions, either the one
> provided by the installation of ubuntu (virtualbox-ose-guest-utils
> 2.0.4) or the one which is provided by the SuSE host (virtualbox.iso)
> and mounted as a cd.
>
> The installation of virtualbox-ose-guest-utils 2.0.4 using synaptic packet 
> manager fails with FATAL: Error inserting vboxadd ... 
> * can not modprobe vboxadd kernal module

That suggests that you need some sort of set of kernel modules; my guess
would be the 'virtualbox-ose-guest-source' together with
'module-assistant' would give you what you need.

> So I tried to use the one from the vbox host, where I get
> In file included from /tmp/vbox.0/cmc.c:17: 
> error: asm/semaphore.h - no such file or directory

You need the kernel headers from your running kernel installed for it to
build correctly.  That is easy, thankfully:

    sudo aptitude install linux-headers-`uname -r`

> I have other Linux instances running OK with the guest additions from
> the host, it is just ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 where I have this problem.
>
> What do I overlook or not understand?

Presumably the other platforms supplied the appropriate kernel headers
more eagerly than Ubuntu did.

Regards,
        Daniel