On 2022-03-31 at 09:30, Dan Ritter wrote: > Erwan David wrote: > >> virtualbox is available either in Sid, or on Oracl's virtualbox >> repository. Where do you get it (I am on testing). > > Running testing means you have to expect this sort of thing. > In any case, you seem to have answered your own question: Oracle is > the supplier of virtualbox. If you don't trust them, there are many > fine alternatives to virtualbox, most of which are built on the work > of kvm, qemu or Xen. I interpreted Erwan's post not as asking where to go to get VirtualBox, but as sort of a poll: "when you need VirtualBox, to which (of the available locations, two of which I've already listed) do you choose to go to get it?". For myself, the answer is quite simple: I don't. VirtualBox used to make my life easier, but the combination of not being available in Debian testing with the *reasons* why it isn't available there (license-related, last time I checked, if I remember correctly) mean the ways in which it used to make my life easier aren't worth the trouble of getting it from somewhere else, at least not to me. When running stable or testing, installing a package from sid is at least mildly inadvisable - because it may pull in dependencies from sid, thereby leading to your running not only a FrankenDebian but one which is partly sid and therefore includes some of the risks that come with running sid. Installing a package from a third-party repository has its own risks, and I no longer trust Oracle to do the right thing when it comes to open-source software, so I can't recommend installing VirtualBox from their repository. That seems to leave no options for where to get it from, for anyone not running sid. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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