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Duke Nukem

Member

Registered: 2018-11-07

Posts: 52  

Recommend a Hypervisor ?

I was looking for VirtualBox in the repositories but couldn't find it. Then I learned that it had been removed some time ago because it's considered crap. Can anyone recommend an alternative? The only one I seem to find is Xen.  I used to use VirtualBox - why was it crap?

HardSun

Member

Registered: 2025-07-29

Posts: 41  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

You could try Aqemu which is a gui frontend for qemu, it would be good for people who used virtualbox.
Maybe not as many bells and whistles im not sure, but its a starting point to learn more about the powerful qemu type 2 hypervisor.

https://packages.debian.org/trixie/aqemu

Last edited by HardSun (Yesterday 21:48:13)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,379  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

It called crap by the users of kvm/qemu, VMware, Proxmox etc that only consider their tooling as approriate. Others complain about the license Oracle is using. Others don't like to use a Oracle product ..... I am happy to use it for 13 years now, beginning with my first Linux only PC.

Anyway, VBox was removed from Debian because of license (always was in contrib) and versioning problems, and I think they also lacked a maintainer. So its not available in the Devuan repos. Anyhow, no big problem, the Debian way of packaging was real crap in my eyes.

What I do for many years now: I pull a .deb fitting for the corresponding Debian release from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads, also load the extension pack suiting to the version, and install it with dpkg -i. Only two files required, the guest addition come within the .deb.

Last edited by rolfie (Yesterday 22:07:33)

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,936  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

Hello:

... looking for VirtualBox in the repositories ...

See here.

This is what is available from the repositories.

7.2.4-dfsg-1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ceres/contrib amd64
5.2.24-dfsg-4~bpo9+1 http://archive.devuan.org/merged ascii-backports/contrib amd64
4.3.36-dfsg-1+deb8u1 http://archive.devuan.org/merged jessie/contrib amd64

Two archived versions and one in testing/unstable.

No idea why it is not in the Debian repository (but not being there is the main reason it is not in the Devuan repository).
Maybe Debian has some temporary beef with VirtualBox till they can move it to a stable release?
Who knows ...

I use this version downloaded from the VirtualBox repository:

virtualbox-7.0/now 7.0.20-163906~Debian~bullseye amd64 [installed,local]

# virtual box repository x installation
# deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/ bullseye non-free contrib 
# deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/ bookworm non-free contrib 

Just in case, I have not updated it as it works fine as it is.
But then I don't use it for anything complicated. ie: a server or such.
Most important thing I run at every boot is a headless Chimaera VM for PiHole+Unbound, no issues to speak of.

There's also an XPSP3 VM and a stock untouched (save updates/upgrades) Daedalus VM which I bring up when needed.
Like I said, no issues to speak of.

Best,
A.

Edit:
Here you go --> https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox

Last edited by Altoid (Yesterday 22:16:55)

Devarch

Member

Registered: 2022-10-03

Posts: 107  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

I recommend either https://github.com/ivan-hc/VirtualBox-appimage
or  https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu

pcalvert

Member

Registered: 2017-05-15

Posts: 269  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

I was looking for VirtualBox in the repositories but couldn't find it. Then I learned that it had been removed some time ago because it's considered crap.

I believe that the real reason is because VirtualBox is not compatible with the way that Debian prefers to do things. Oracle wants people to use the latest version of VirtualBox rather than the Debian way, which is to apply patches to an older version of VirtualBox.

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HardSun

Member

Registered: 2025-07-29

Posts: 41  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

I believe that the real reason is because VirtualBox is not compatible with the way that Debian prefers to do things. Oracle wants people to use the latest version of VirtualBox rather than the Debian way, which is to apply patches to an older version of VirtualBox.

Its partially closed source and not built against debian free software guidelines.
The virtualbox extensions packs are proprietary software.
Virtualbox itself is built using the open watcom compiler under the Sybase Open Watcom Public License.

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 554  

Re: Recommend a Hypervisor ?

I used to use VirtualBox - why was it crap?

It isn't. It's just a pain in the arse to package for and maintain in debian. "crap" is an assumption from those too lazy to investigate why it was dropped from the repos, a "sour grapes" justification from those too inept to work around that removal, or...

It called crap by the users of kvm/qemu, VMware, Proxmox etc that only consider their tooling as approriate. Others complain about the license Oracle is using. Others don't like to use a Oracle product ..... I am happy to use it for 13 years now

Indeed, and while the fully FOSS options are arguably better in many situations, there are a few corners where virtualbox still pulls ahead - IME those being a mature and fully featured GUI, and somewhat superior (primarily graphics) performance for windows guests.
It's also properly cross-platform (which kvm is not) and free (which vmware is not), so for the casual user who wants their VMs to be portable between different host systems without a bunch of faffing around it's rather convenient.

Oracle wants people to use the latest version of VirtualBox rather than the Debian way, which is to apply patches to an older version of VirtualBox.

That's the primary concern (i.e. oracle not cooperating wrt backporting fixes), and it's exacerbated by the licencing making it very difficult for debian maintainers to do such backporting themselves.

As such, "stable" (and secure) virtualbox versions cannot be maintained in the debian (and by extension devuan) stable repos, but current upstream releases are still available in unstable.
The simplest solution (unless/until it appears in trixie-fasttrack) is to either use the upstream release .debs or backport it from unstable yourself.

Last edited by steve_v (Today 08:23:32)

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