Install Oracle VirtualBox 5.2.8 On Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint / Fedora 27

This tutorial shows how you can install Oracle Virtualbox 5.2.8 On Ubuntu 17.10 / 16.04 LTS / 14.04, Linux Mint and Fedora 26/27

Virtualbox is an Open source application for running operating systems virtually in your base system, with this application you can create and run multiple Operating systems virtually on your PC.


Virtualbox available for Multiple operating systems (ie) windows, Solaris, MacOS-X, and Linux

Changelog in VirtualBox 5.2.8

• VMM: added support for FSGSBASE, PCID, INVPCID CPU features for guests
• VMM: fixed EMM386 issue with detecting suitable page frame base
• Front end: Linux: prevent VM window from jumping and auto-resizing to tiny size after resizing it on HiDPI screen
• Front end: Linux: fixed seamless regression caused by wm_class functionality
• Front end: switched to https downloads
• Front end: fixed crash while opening New machine wizard
• Audio: added support for distinguishing recording sources in the PulseAudio mixer on the host when multiple VMs are running
• Audio: various fixes for the DirectSound backend
• Video recording: added better file seeking support and fixed playback of recorded files with certain players (e.g. Firefox)
• Audio: various fixes for Windows guest surround setups
• Audio: various fixes for HDA emulation
• Serial: fixed an issue where the serial port parameters in the emulation and host serial port got out of sync
• Storage: fixed overwriting certain INQUIRY data for the DVD/CD drive attached to a AHCI controller
• Storage: fixed handling VMDK images created by Amazon EC2 VM export
• Network: fixed PXE boot regression in e1000
• Network: Added a workaround for older guests which do not enable bus mastering for the virtio PCI device
• 3D: add environment variable to configure presenting 3D content on main thread
• Windows hosts: fixed indiscriminate binding of NDIS5 bridged driver, that caused PPPOE malfunction
• Windows guests: fixed incorrect function error when using shared folders in certain applications
• Linux guests: Linux 4.15 support
• Linux guests: fixed black screen when 3D enabled in guests
• Linux guests: suppress setuid and setgid in shared folders

Installation steps

Install Virtualbox on Ubuntu / LinuxMint

• Method 1: Via PPA
• Method 2: Via deb file

Method 1: Via PPA

Step 1: Before installing the new version, we need to remove the older using the software center or use the below command

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox virtualbox-5.*

Step 2: Add the Packages list to sources.list

$sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian '$(lsb_release -cs)' contrib non-free' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list"

Note: LinuxMint and elementary OS users have to replace the name manually in place of $(lsb_release -cs).

Step 3: Download and install the Key for Virtualbox

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

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Step 4: Update the Repository

sudo apt-get update

Step 5: Install Virtualbox 5.2.8

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2

Method 2: Via deb file

If you are not comfortable with the PPA for installing the Virtualbox, then manually download the deb file and install it.

Step 1: Download the deb files from here according to your distribution

Step 2: Install the deb file

dpkg -i virtualbox-5.2_5.2.8-121009~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb

Install VirtualBox on Fedora

Step 1: Add the below Virtualbox repo

[virtualbox-repo]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - VirtualBox
baseurl=http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/$releasever/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
repo_gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc

Step 2: Install the Virtualbox

dnf install VirtualBox-5.2

Step 3: If you got any error while installation regarding KERN_DIR do the below steps

dnf install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers kernel-devel dkms

dnf install kernel-headers-$(uname -r)