Oracle VirtualBox 5.2.8 has been released on February 27th, 2018. Oracle VirtualBox 5.2 is the latest major release after launched by Oracle team. This version has the new feature to export VM to Oracle Cloud, Unattended guest installation, improved tools handling with more attractive icons. Oracle team also added an experimental feature for audio support for video recording. See the ChangeLog for more details.

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This article helps you to install VirtualBox on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS systems.

Step 1 – Prerequsities

You must have logged in to your server using root or sudo privileged user. After login to your system update current packages of the system to the latest version.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2 – Configure Apt Repository

Let’s import the Oracle public key to your system signed the Debian packages using the following commands.

wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Now, you need to add Oracle VirtualBox PPA to Ubuntu system. You can do this by running the below command on your system.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xenial contrib"

This command will add an entry to /etc/apt/sources.list at end of the file.

Step 3 – Install Oracle VirtualBox

After completing the above steps, let’s install VirtualBox using the following commands. If you have already installed an older version of VirtualBox, Below command will update it automatically.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2

Step 4 – Launch VirtualBox

We can use dashboard shortcuts to start VirtualBox or simply run following command from a terminal.

virtualbox

virtualbox-on-ubuntu

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51 Comments

  1. Great tutorial, I think there is a typo. Is the line added to your /etc/apt/sources.list should be “https” and not “http”? Thanks

  2. Munendra Singh on

    aaaaaaa@munendra-latitude:~$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    virtualbox-5.2 : Depends: libcurl3 (>= 7.16.2) but it is not installable
    Depends: libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4) but it is not installable
    Depends: libvpx3 (>= 1.5.0) but it is not installable
    Recommends: libsdl-ttf2.0-0 but it is not installable
    Recommends: gcc but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: make but it is not installable or
    build-essential but it is not installable or
    dpkg-dev but it is not going to be installed
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
    aaaaaaa@munendra-latitude:~$

  3. There were problems setting up VirtualBox. To re-start the set-up process, run
    /sbin/vboxconfig
    as root.

    I can try this ,but error is not resolved, please help me.

    • I had problem running virtualbox after setting up. This was because I was using older kernel version (4.15) on ubuntu. To find out kernel version run:

      uname -r

      if it shows older version, update your kernel version to 4.19

  4. it gives me the error
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    E: Unable to locate package virtualbox-5.2
    E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘virtualbox-5.2’
    E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘virtualbox-5.2’

    what should I do???

  5. help pls !!!!

    Err:9 http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jaunty Release
    404 Not Found [IP : 193.140.13.73 80]
    Lecture des listes de paquets… Fait
    E: The repository ‘http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian artful Release’ does not have a Release file.
    N: Updating from such a repository can’t be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
    N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

  6. Trying to install into Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela, upon running sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.1 I get “E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘virtualbox-5.1′”

  7. user@user:~$ lsb_release -c
    Codename: xenial
    user@user:~$ deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xenial contrib
    No command ‘deb’ found, did you mean:
    Command ‘dab’ from package ‘bsdgames’ (universe)
    Command ‘deb3’ from package ‘quilt’ (universe)
    Command ‘debi’ from package ‘devscripts’ (main)
    Command ‘derb’ from package ‘icu-devtools’ (main)
    Command ‘dub’ from package ‘dub’ (universe)
    Command ‘debc’ from package ‘devscripts’ (main)
    Command ‘xdeb’ from package ‘xdeb’ (universe)
    Command ‘dex’ from package ‘dex’ (universe)
    deb: command not found

  8. Its not working for me. Saying that vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Please run /sbin/vboxconfig to recompile and run. However when I tried this, its not working again.

  9. Hello. I used this guide and i got it installed fine. However I noticed that when I open virtualbox from the search bar its different than when I open it from the terminal using virtualbox.

    When I open it from the search the file options is missing, doesnt show the virtual machines, and the GUI is different. If I open from terminal then I can get the file option and it shows the virtual machines.

    I`m not sure if this is normal or not … but it seems really weird. I do not have two different versions installed. I am on Ubuntu 14.04 x64.

    Is there a way to get the terminal version to open without having to run through terminal, like make a shorcut to that version or something? I dont really want the terminal open all the time just to use virtualbox. When I close out of terminal the program closes out as I`m sure you know.

    Thanks for any help on this!

    • update:

      It seems to be a difference of root. If I am root by say sudo -i in terminal and then run virtualbox I get the right version to run with all the options and virtual machines.

      However if I am not root and type virtualbox I get a watered down version and now virtual machines. This is the same version that I get if I just open it using search.

      I hope this gives more info into whats going on… if anyone sees this.

  10. Fetched 819 B in 23s (35 B/s)
    W: GPG error: http://deb.opera.com stable Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 63F7D4AFF6D61D45
    W: Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/dists/stable/Release Unable to find expected entry ‘main/binary-i386/Packages’ in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)

    E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

  11. i download wheezy but download was squeee Fetched 819 B in 23s (35 B/s)
    W: GPG error: http://deb.opera.com stable Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 63F7D4AFF6D61D45
    W: Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/dists/stable/Release Unable to find expected entry ‘main/binary-i386/Packages’ in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)

    E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

  12. Hi, so I have an issue here…

    desktop@steamos:~$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.0
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package virtualbox-5.0 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source

    E: Package ‘virtualbox-5.0’ has no installation candidate

    What do I do?! Thanks

  13. Hi Rahul,

    Works like a charme, thank you for your clear instructions ! Extension pack is already included, USB support worked out of the box.

    Best greetings from Germany.

    Arno

  14. Hi Rahul,
    I am getting the following error, trying out in Ubuntu 12.04

    ou might want to run ‘apt-get -f install’ to correct these:
    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    virtualbox-4.3 : Depends: libvpx1 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: libsdl-ttf2.0-0 but it is not going to be installed
    Conflicts: virtualbox-4.3:i386 but 4.3.18-96516~Ubuntu~precise is to be installed
    virtualbox-4.3:i386 : Depends: libc6:i386 (>= 2.15) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libcurl3:i386 (>= 7.16.2-1) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libdevmapper1.02.1:i386 (>= 2:1.02.20) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libgcc1:i386 (>= 1:4.1.1) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 or
    libgl1:i386
    Depends: libpng12-0:i386 (>= 1.2.13-4) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libpython2.7:i386 (>= 2.7) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libqt4-network:i386 (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libqt4-opengl:i386 (>= 4:4.7.2) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libqtgui4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libsdl1.2debian:i386 (>= 1.2.10-1) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libstdc++6:i386 (>= 4.6) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libvpx1:i386 (>= 1.0.0) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libx11-6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxcursor1:i386 (> 1.1.2) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxext6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxinerama1:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxml2:i386 (>= 2.7.4) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxmu6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libxt6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: zlib1g:i386 (>= 1:1.1.4) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: psmisc:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: libasound2:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: libpulse0:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: libsdl-ttf2.0-0:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: dkms:i386 but it is not installable
    Recommends: linux-headers:i386
    Recommends: gcc:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: make:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: binutils:i386 but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: pdf-viewer:i386
    Recommends: libgl1:i386
    Conflicts: virtualbox-4.3 but 4.3.18-96516~Ubuntu~precise is to be installed
    E: Unmet dependencies. Try ‘apt-get -f install’ with no packages (or specify a solution).

  15. It doesnt work on my Debian Wheezy:

    virtualbox-4.3 : Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.13-38+deb7u6 is to be installed

    Also, 4.3 is not the stable version for Wheezy.

    If i go ahead with the .deb will I screw my dependencies ?

  16. Thanks. Followed your tutorial here exactly as written on a Debian Wheezy 32bit.
    Everything went great, until I typed in: # virtualbox
    I got an error: Failed to open the X11 display!
    What am I doing wrong?

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