Bug#851124: Bug#794466: VIrtualBox future in Debian
Hello Jeremy,
(and security team)
>I installed Debian Stretch today using the January 23 weekly
>netinstall image. I installed to a VirtualBox guest (the host is
>Ubuntu 17.04 Alpha). The install went well except for two issues.
>
>1. I chose to install the GNOME desktop. tasksel had some kind of
>error near the end of downloading packages. Maybe some transient
>network error. When I re-ran the task, it suggested I install some
>virtualbox-ose-something package. The install completed successfully.
virtualbox-ose is dead and removed, not sure why/who is pulling it in
>2. When I rebooted after install, gdm did not start and my console was
>flickering really bad. Along with the console flickering, I could not
>reliably enter my password since keypresses were getting dropped. I
>tried booting into recovery mode but since I did not set a root
>password (I prefer to use sudo), Debian gave me an error about the
>root account being locked and after I pressed Enter as prompted, it
>continued a normal boot. After about 5 minutes, the flickering
>stopped. I guess this is systemd eagerly retrying a failed service
>until it reaches its timeout.
>
>journalctl -xb revealed that gdm ""could not find drm kms device". I
>couldn't find anything useful by searching for that message on Google.
>I then checked to see whether the VirtualBox guest utils were
>installed. They weren't. So I had to enable unstable in my apt
>sources, then
>sudo apt -t unstable install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11
>sudo reboot
>
>gdm works great now.
exactly
>3. Something needs to be done about whatever in the installer suggests
>installing the virtualbox-ose package. Since I clicked OK, I thought
>it *did* install something useful for VirtualBox but I don't think it
>did.
probably that suggestion should be updated to virtualbox-guest-x11
>4. I have not had the #2 problem with other distros. Ubuntu includes
>some minimal VirtualBox-compatible driver as part of its default
>kernel. Could Debian do the same so that Debian will actually run on
>VirtualBox?
it was nacked by Debian Kernel Team when I asked it
>5. As far as the drivers go, if they aren't in a Debian release, then
>once someone actually gets Debian running, I guess they'll either just
>keep whatever drivers they installed the first time. Or maybe they'll
>use VirtualBox's guest additions iso to install the drivers. Neither
>way offers automatic update of drivers. I feel this situation is worse
>from a security perspective than having a Debian package that is at
>least updated on major new Debian releases.
fully agree, but I'm not in the position to revert this change
>Why can't the Security Team treat VirtualBox like how it's been
>treating WebKit1? Still have it in the archives but with a prominent
>notice that Debian does not provide security updates.
you might want to ask them :)
>6. Assuming that VirtualBox won't be in the next stable Debian
>release, I guess we need a page like mozilla.debian.net for it?
>
not sure what it means, but ok for me!
I still think vbox is superior and I have to wait some minutes to make the screen
stop flickering each time I install a new Debian iso in a VM.
I really think not having it working out-of-the-box in a virtual machine is really
a bad user experience.
G.
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