[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#696011: fix is missing

[Daniel Pocock]

On 12/08/13 21:49, Felix Geyer wrote:
> On 12.08.2013 18:45, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>> On 12/08/13 18:40, Felix Geyer wrote:
>>> On 12.08.2013 17:55, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>>>> This bug was supposedly serious and marked RC and then marked done
>>>>
>>>> The fixed version was apparently uploaded but is not available in stable
>>> The bug affected experimental and later unstable and is fixed in both.
>>> wheezy was never affected by this because the wheezy kernel is based on
>>> v3.2.
>> The comments suggest that it also impacts guests, although it doesn't
>> appear that patching the host's kernel module has any impact on the
>> guest in this case.
> Both the host and guest kernel modules from wheezy are not compatible with
> kernel 3.7.
> Why are you concerned about the guest modules? Do you need to run wheezy
> with a sid kernel as a guest as well?
>
>>>> Can somebody please comment on this?  How can somebody running wheezy
>>>> use this fix?  Or should the bug be re-opened?
>>> Apparently you already reopened the bug for whatever reason.
>>> It shouldn't be surprising that external kernel modules don't work with
>>> the latest kernel version since the API is constantly changing.
>>>
>>> The latest version of virtualbox is in wheezy-backports which is compatible
>>> with the kernel from wheezy-backports.
>> An unrelated kernel issue on Thinkpads prevents me running the wheezy
>> kernel (I put up with it crashing every day for 2 weeks and then had to
>> take a kernel from sid).
>>
>> It was relatively easy for me to copy the patch into /usr/src on my
>> wheezy box and the dkms builds the module successfully - I suspect I
>> will not be the only person to come across this type of scenario during
>> the life of wheezy
> That's why the latest virtualbox version is in wheezy-backports.
> I don't think adding patches for unsupported kernels are suitable for
> stable updates.
I understand that is generally a limitation with Debian

Looking at this patch, I have so far only tried patching the module
source and not the other parts of the patch.  It works for me at present.

Basically,

a) install the source normally and try to build with dkms

b) it fails

c) apply the subset of the patch like this:

    cd /usr/src/virtualbox-4.1.18
    patch -p4 < /tmp/vbox-wheezy.patch

d) run dkms autoinstall

and then it works with wheezy.  vbox-wheezy.patch is extracted from the
complete patch, it is attached.

I didn't want to start making package upgrades using backports when
something could be achieved with such a trivial patch

I also notice that this patch uses conditional macros to ensure that the
code is completely unchanged for users of kernels < 3.7.0, including the
standard wheezy kernel.  Applying the patch will only help users of new
kernels, without any change whatsoever for users who stay on the
standard kernel.  Therefore, releasing this patch next time there is
some update to wheezy is extremely low risk for existing kernel users.


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