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Fedora Getting Started Linux Problem Solving VirtualBox

VirtualBox Problem Solved

David Both

I recently wrote about booting to a previous kernel when the updated kernel caused problems with VirtualBox. This did allow me to continue using the VM to do research for the 3rd Edition of my “Using and Administering Linux“ series of books, but it was a circumvention rather than a permanent problem resolution.

The Resolution

Further research led me to the Fedora discussion page where I found the resolution. Although the issue only appeared after upgrading to the kernel 6.19.6 and 6.19.7, the root of the problem is not the kernel, but rather the program used by VirtualBox to build the kernel modules it requires to work properly with each kernel.

I tried to rebuild the kernel modules on multiple kernels, but it always failed. It even failed while running the kernel with which VirtualBox worked, but it only worked because the kernel modules had been rebuilt while a working version of the akmods program was installed.

The resolution is to install a version of akmod-VirtualBox that’s still in the testing staged, but which does resolve the problem.

I installed the akmod-VirtualBox package from the RPMFusion testing repository, ran the akmods program to rebuild the kernel modules, and restarted the vboxdrv.service. 

# dnf -y --refresh --enablerepo=rpmfusion-free-updates-testing update akmod-VirtualBox
# akmods
# systemctl restart vboxdrv.service

Everything now works as it should.

Fedora Discussion

The Fedora Discussion page is an excellent place to ask questions and learn more about Fedora, usage, problems, and fixes.

If you are new to Linux and Fedora in particular, you should it check out. It has a number of lists that contain important and useful information. These descriptions are taken directly from the main Discussion page.

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