[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Please package virtualbox 4.2.2

[Felix Geyer]

On 12.11.2012 12:19, Frank Mehnert wrote:
> It is correct that we switched from bcc to Open Watcom to compile
> the PC BIOS as well as the VGA BIOS. The reason is indeed that bcc
> is unmaintained since years, has many bugs and creates code which
> is far away from being optimized. And we didn't find an appropriate
> alternative to Open Watcom.
>
> But it is not true that Open Watcom is required to build the BIOS
> of VirtualBox. If Open Watcom is not available, an alternative Assembler
> file can be used to create the BIOS. See here:
>
> https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Devices/BiosCommonCode

Right, but Open Watcom is required to build the BIOS from source
("preferred form for modification").
That makes VirtualBox a candidate for the Debian contrib repository as it
is free but requires non-free software to build from source. When the
package is in contrib the assembler file could be used to build the BIOS.

Felix