Installing module for wrong kernel flavor breaks system (modules missing)

[Daniel Hahler]

A lot of users break their system by installing the wrong flavor of the virtualbox-ose-modules package (kernel module for virtualbox-ose), e.g. virtualbox-ose-modules-386 on a linux-generic system.
This pulls in linux-image-$ABI-386, through the Depends of virtualbox-ose-modules-386.

After reboot, this new kernel image appears to get used, but it's missing the kernel modules etc.

Therefore, I'd like to change the Depends of virtualbox-ose-modules-$ABI-$FLAVOR to a Recommends instead. This way, installing the wrong virtualbox-ose-modules package would only make virtualbox-ose not work correctly (vboxdrv not available for the used kernel flavor), but won't install a kernel image that the user does not want (and causes him trouble).

Another option would be to depend on the kernel meta packages, e.g. linux-386, linux-generic etc. This way you may still pull in another kernel flavor accidentally, but it would not cause so much harm.

See also bug 188579, which is about apt selecting the most appropriate package automatically.

WORKAROUND / FIX FOR AFFECTED USERS:
In case you're affected by this bug, the following steps or a variation thereof might fix it:
1. Make sure you have two different kernel image flavors installed, e.g. linux-image-2.6.24-18-generic and linux-image-2.6.24-18-386
2. Check "uname -a" to see which one is installed
3. Make sure you can boot the correct one, which would be -generic in most cases - you can select the one to use during boot from the Grub menu
4. Once booted, install the v-o-m package for the correct kernel, e.g. "virtualbox-ose-modules-generic"
5. Remove the unnecessary kernel image package, e.g. linux-image-2.6.24-18-386, and the v-o-m package for it
6. Reboot

[Sameer Grover (sameer-grover-1)]

Seconded.

[Arthur (iegik)]

HowTo Fix:
1. Install VirtualBox module source and build-essential
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-source build-essential

2. Fix missing/broken path to "src" in /etc/init.d/vboxdrv by creating simbolic link
sudo mkdir /usr/share/virtualbox/src
sudo ln -s /usr/src/vboxdrv-3.0.8 /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxdrv
sudo ln -s /usr/src/vboxnetflt-3.0.8 /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxnetflt
sudo ln -s /usr/src/vboxnetadp-3.0.8 /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxnetadp
3. Continue setup (Build module)
sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel module * done.
 * Removing old VirtualBox netflt kernel module * done.
 * Removing old VirtualBox kernel module * done.
 * Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module * done.
 * Starting VirtualBox kernel module * done.

Result:
cat /var/log/vbox-install.log