how to reinstall virtual box

Hi,

VirtualBox isn't in ubuntu repository. I think you installed it manually. :-)
You can find packages for feisty, edgy and dapper here: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

If you have problems with the Kernel-Module, you can recompile it with:
sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Hi Andre thanks for your answer. when i tried to download it from the site you mentioned i got a message saying
'could not open virtual box ubuntu etc
the package might be corrupted or you are not allowed to open the file: please check the permissions of the file.'

when i copy the command you gave to a terminal i am asked for a password. when i give my password nothing happens.

i think linux is just for programmers. maybe in a year or two it will be ok for general home use. i don't know why it is represented as ok for the average user. i'm rather annoyed that the people who produce it are wasting people's time with something that isnt finished. no wonder its free it doesnt work properly.

 --- On Thu 05/24, =?utf-8?q?Andr=C3=A9_Klitzing?= < <email address hidden> > wrote:
From: =?utf-8?q?Andr=C3=A9_Klitzing?= [mailto: <email address hidden>]
To: <email address hidden>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 20:32:16 -0000
Subject: Re: [Question #7135]: how to reinstall virtual box

Your question #7135 on Ubuntu changed:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135 Status: Open => AnsweredAndr�� Klitzing proposed the following answer:Hi,VirtualBox isn't in ubuntu repository. I think you installed it manually. :-)You can find packages for feisty, edgy and dapper here: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/DownloadsIf you have problems with the Kernel-Module, you can recompile it with:sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup_______________________________________________________________________If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let usknow that it is solved:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135/+confirm?answer_id=0If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to thefollowing page to enter your feedback:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135

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Hello !

Can you please describe a bit more your problem ?

Which version of Ubuntu are you using ? Did you install it in a Virtalized environment (or is it Windows that is virtualized on your Ubuntu box ?)

And please keep calm as your in a community driven platform, so being rude or trying to hurt our feelings is not much a good idea, especially if you come here for help ...

Regards,
Benoît

(I'm not a programmer and my mom is able to use Ubuntu ...)

Hello,

I think you shouldn't give up so early and say "linux is not for home users" because of a little question. :-)

Maybe you can describe your problem a little bit more as Benoit says.

Regards,
André

Benoit I'm not being rude I'm being factual. if that upsets you - tough. i have installed ubuntu 7 feisty fawn. i downloaded it from the ubuntu website on to a cd and then loaded the cd onto my computer. i installed it straight on to the hard drive not on to a virtual platform. it won't play movies it won't write music to a blank cd, it won't download acrobat or real player in fact it won't download anything. sometimes it won't start. it doesn't recognise or mount one of the cd drives it doesnt recognise or mount the floppy drive. i could go on but i have better things to do than itemise the shortcomings of this os. attempts to remedy the situation have been unsuccessful. the fact is that linux costs time - lots of time. as for the community support i haven't received any reply to the bug report. and some of the answers i have received to questions have been unintelligible to an ordinary person. if someone comes sailing with me who has never been in a boat before i do not
expect them to know what a jib halyard is or a kicking strap or a pintle. i explain these things in language they can understand. what is it with techies ? are they all incurably insecure? does it make them feel special to talk in techie speak?
regards
Stephen

 --- On Fri 05/25, Benoit Malet < <email address hidden> > wrote:
From: Benoit Malet [mailto: <email address hidden>]
To: <email address hidden>
Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 09:15:57 -0000
Subject: Re: [Question #7135]: how to reinstall virtual box

Your question #7135 on Ubuntu changed:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135 Status: Open => AnsweredBenoit Malet proposed the following answer:Hello !Can you please describe a bit more your problem ?Which version of Ubuntu are you using ? Did you install it in aVirtalized environment (or is it Windows that is virtualized on yourUbuntu box ?)And please keep calm as your in a community driven platform, so beingrude or trying to hurt our feelings is not much a good idea, especiallyif you come here for help ...Regards,Beno��t(I'm not a programmer and my mom is able to use Ubuntu ...)_______________________________________________________________________If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let usknow that it is solved:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135/+confirm?answer_id=2If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to thefollowing page to enter your
feedback:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135

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Thanks for sharing your point of view with us Stephen.

Without questioning your arguments (you made a few quite right observations), I'd like to remind you that this is a technical support tracker. So I'd like to invite you to http://ubuntuforums.org to share your thoughts with the community, if you're still interested in it.

I'd like to take the opportunity to solve your problem, which also gives me the chance to clear some of your arguments:

In opposite to -say- Windows, Ubuntu is meant as a complete desktop environment. As such, the installation of third-party applications is unsupported and strongly discouraged. You're facing problems, because you tried to install VirtualBox from a third-party developer.

VirtualBox is a quite unstable and extreme slow virtualisation product, for which (to my knowledge) no open source Ubuntu package exists yet.

The best way to solve your problem is to remove the package completely. You do so by opening "System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager", enter your password, click the "Search" button. Input "InnoTek" (it's VirtualBox developer) and press ok. You'll now able to deselect VirtualBox. Just right click on the search result, select "Mark for complete removal" and press the "Apply" button on the top bar of Synaptic. Press "Apply" when Synaptic asks you if you want to apply the changes. After that, you won't experience any further problems with the update.

Regarding your questions in your last post: Please open one support request for each question/problem you're facing. Please keep in mind that we need more information than "it does not work".

As you mentioned that you're unsatisfied with the response time and quality, I'd like to introduce you to:

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid
and
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/commercial/marketplace

Most professional supporters offer different kinds of Service-Level-Agreements (SLAs), which guarantee specific response times.
Please be aware, that most supporters also are quite specific on *what* they do support. Like a motorbike garage does not support trucks, even if both vehicles share a lot of similarities.

Markus thank you for your reply. you say the following : 'the installation of third-party applications is unsupported and strongly discouraged......VirtualBox is a quite unstable and extreme slow virtualisation product..' The odd thing is that it was you who suggested i download it in a previous post : question 6486 markus thielman proposed the following answer: if you're a beginner, it might be easier to use virtualbox and set up a 'virtual windows' so you don't need to reboot and you don't need to reconfigure your bootloader. just give it a try: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/DownloadsAnyway, whatever. to get back to solving the problem,� unfortunately your suggestions for remedying the situation do not work because as soon as i go into synaptic package manger i get the message box saying 'An error occurred. E: The package virtualbox needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.E: Internal error opening cache (1). Please report.when i close the error box,
synaptic package manager also closesis there any other way to get rid of virtual box ? thanks for taking the time to answer Stephen Baker

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Hi,

I can see the problem a little bit better now.
Please try to remove virtualbox in the terminal. :-)

- Open a "Terminal"
- write "sudo dpkg --purge virtualbox" and press ENTER. It will ask you for your password.

After that it should remove everything of virtualbox from your system.
If that gives errors... please try the command "sudo apt-get --fix-broken install" and you will try to fix your package-system.

If you get errors from that commands. Please report it! :-)
Of course it isn't pretty that you need to use a terminal. But normally synaptic should do that, too. Maybe a bug in synaptic.

I don't think that it is a good idea for a beginner to use a VM. VMs aren't so easy.... maybe with windows as host and ubuntu as guest. :-)

Regards,
André

Great one Stephen, well, as it was my fault, I will do my best help you out :-).

1) Open a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal)
2) run the following command: "sudo apt-get remove virtualbox"
3) It will ask for your password
4) It asks if you really want to remove "virtualbox"

I'm really sorry VirtualBox messed up your system. I'd like to give a short explanation why I gave you that odd advise: VirtualBox allows you to create new virtual systems, while VMWare Player does not. VMWare Server does, but compared to VirtualBox it's quite hard to install if you're new to Ubuntu.

I testet VirtualBox it a few times without problems. After a few days of VirtualBox experience I deeply regret giving such a advise. It's just horrible instable and slow.

If you're still interested in some kind of virtualisation for you windows system, use VMWare Server. It's unsupported and highly discouraged, but it could solve your problem: http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_feisty_fawn_vmware_server_howto

I'm just afraid you won't like VMWares installation procedure.

 Hi Markus and Andre thanks for your answers. For some reason the terminal doesn't like my password. Is it the same password I use to log on when I turn the computer on? Re the virtual platform I've given up on that idea, thanks for the advice though. Second hand computers are so cheap now I think it makes more sense to have two computers. One for the internet and one for work. If I want to go back to WIndows I'll put it on the other computer. --- On Sat 05/26, Markus Thielmann &lt; <email address hidden> &gt; wrote:From: Markus Thielmann [mailto: <email address hidden>]To: <email address hidden>: Sat, 26 May 2007 20:37:46 -0000Subject: Re: [Question #7135]: how to reinstall virtual boxYour question #7135 on Ubuntu changed:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135Markus Thielmann proposed the following answer:Great one Stephen, well, as it was my fault, I will do my best help youout :-).1) Open a terminal
(Applications-&gt;Accessories-&gt;Terminal)2) run the following command: &quot;sudo apt-get remove virtualbox&quot;3) It will ask for your password4) It asks if you really want to remove &quot;virtualbox&quot;I'm really sorry VirtualBox messed up your system. I'd like to give ashort explanation why I gave you that odd advise: VirtualBox allows youto create new virtual systems, while VMWare Player does not. VMWareServer does, but compared to VirtualBox it's quite hard to install ifyou're new to Ubuntu.I testet VirtualBox it a few times without problems. After a few days ofVirtualBox experience I deeply regret giving such a advise. It's justhorrible instable and slow.If you're still interested in some kind of virtualisation for youwindows system, use VMWare Server. It's unsupported and highlydiscouraged, but it could solve your problem:http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_feisty_fawn_vmware_server_howtoI'm just afraid you won't like VMWares installation
procedure._______________________________________________________________________If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let usknow that it is solved:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135/+confirm?answer_id=8If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to thefollowing page to enter your feedback:https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7135

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OK this time my password worked and i got the following message dpkg: error processing virtualbox [--purge]:package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal. Errors were encountered while processing : virtualbox should i try reinstalling ?

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Hi again I tried to reinstall virtualbox but it won't let me. 'could not open virtualbox 1.3.8. the package might be corrupted etc' any ideas ? should i reinstall ubuntu ? if so how do i back up my music files ? everything else backs up ok to a flash drive but i can't get the cd writer to write the music files.thanks for any suggestions Stephen

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Hi Markus thanks for that it seems to have solved the problem. the result was as follows :
dpkg - warning, overriding problem because --force enabled:

 Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should

 reinstall it before attempting a removal.

(Reading database ...

dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `virtualbox' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.

93659 files and directories currently installed.)

Removing virtualbox ...

Just to put this to the end, I'm now quite sure what happend:

When installing VirtualBox, a text based interfaces asks for accepting their license file. As the graphical installer hides this window in some kind of "pull-down window" you might have overlooked that the package wasn't fully installed when you closed the window. After you closed the window, the temporary installation package was deleted.

The package management knew the installation wasn't finished, but couldn't find the original file.

So you just "installed" an empty package by accident.

After a little bit of "googleing" I found a few more users with the same problems. So I will file a feature request for a better handling of such situations.

thanks for sticking with it Markus despite my anti techie rant !

Great thread guys,

Here is the final step for VirtualBox install process.
click F12 In order to accept the terms of agreement.

The problem stephen and every body reading this thread (including me) faced was that the installation never finished so we terminated it.

Thanks for leaving the advice, and commands on how to remove virtualbox, this was a huge help to me even though I didn't post the questions. I was in Markus' same situation!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!