[packaging]virtualbox-guest-dkms(or dkms) should depend on linux-headers

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon)]

virtualbox-guest-dkms contains kernel module source to be built (by dkms) during package installation
thus it should depend on linux-headers-*

Currently if Linux headers package not installed Virtualbox guest kernel module cannot be built, see screenshot attachment for details

It has caused some people believe install this is not same as install VirtualBox Additions, so please help.

Thanks in advance :)

[Wei-Cheng Pan (legnaleurc)]

virtualbox-guest-dkms depends on dkms
dkms recommends linux-headers

IMHO, if this is a problem, it should be fixed by dkms, not virtualbox-guest-dkms.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

@legnaleurc
In my Ubuntu 12.10 system dkms package neither recommend nor suggest linux-headers package
Maybe its now Debian only?

[Wei-Cheng Pan (legnaleurc)]

@Henry Lin

FYI:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/dkms

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

@Wei-Cheng Pan
Thanks.
Currently in packages.ubuntu.com dkms package recommends linux-headers-*
http://packages.ubuntu.com/en/quantal/dkms

but in local system it don't show this dependency entry, as the following screenshot

[Rhonda D'Vine (rhonda)]

Just for the record, because Henry Lin did contact me via email, the packages site does display correct information here, the Packages file for quantal contains the Recommends from dkms to linux-headers.

What distributions are you really using? Because your original install screenshot did show a virtual-guest-dkms version that isn't in quantal but raring? In quantal everything was correct, it's raring that you seem to be using and which is causing you the trouble. And indeed, dkms on quantal doesn't recommend linux-headers anymore.

And when looking into the changelog of raring for dkms, one finds that linux-headers got removed with this rationale:

dkms (2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu2) raring; urgency=low

  * Don't Recommend any linux-headers packages, our installers
    all install headers matching your kernel anyway, and this
    dependency causes more problems than it solves (LP: #960770)

 -- Adam Conrad <email address hidden> Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:28:52 +0000

So you should look into that bugreport and speak with Adam (I subscribed him to this bug now).

Enjoy,
Rhonda

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

@Gerfried Fuchs
Very helpful! Appreciated :)
I checked again and finally found the fact that I should check
http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal-updates/dkms
instead of
http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/dkms
so the dependency info on the site is exactly same with the info found on local system

The first screenshot in captured on a 13.04 Virtualbox VM due to the following post's author
 (Yes, this is a post in Traditional Chinese)
 【已解決】用 virtualbox 客端 Lubuntu 無法使用分享資料夾 [論壇 - 新手村] | Ubuntu 正體中文站
 http://www.ubuntu-tw.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=68992&forum=22&post_id=285726#forumpost285726
while @legnaleurc and me using 12.10(or, maybe Debian etc.)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

dkms should _not_ depend on any headers package, because the correct headers should already be installed by default. For 12.10 this was not the case because of another bug..

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

@tjaalton
There is chance where user didn't install linux-<flavor> before installing dkms, no whether it is installed by ubuntu by default.
If dkms really depend on linux-headers package to work properly, it _should_ list it as dependency.

I couldn't figure out why LP:960770 got to this decision though...