Has anyone had any success installing VirtualBox extension pack under FreeBSD ?

[Mario Lobo]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 22:59:56 +0200
Grégory Reinbold <gregory at nosheep.fr> wrote:

> On 27/07/2017 05:17, Manish Jain wrote:
> >
> > On 07/26/17 15:13, Grégory Reinbold wrote:  
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Did you try it?
> >> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/virtualization-guest-virtualbox.html
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 26/07/2017 11:16, Manish Jain wrote:  
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I would, possibly like many others, like to install VirtualBox
> >>> extension pack under FreeBSD. Currently, the VB::USB situation is
> >>> so messy that no device other than keyboard/mouse work, not even
> >>> as OHCI.
> >>>
> >>> I tried to open a discussion for this at VB forums :
> >>>
> >>> https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=83928
> >>>
> >>> There response is so pathetic that it essentially leaves no hope.
> >>>
> >>> The only hope seems to be hacking the extension packing with the
> >>> Linuxulator, getting the extension pack to think that the OS
> >>> actually is Linux. Has anyone had any success with such an
> >>> approach / something else ?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for any pointers.
> >>> Manish Jain  
> > Hi Gregory,
> >
> > Thanks for replying.
> >
> > I think the URL you referred to caters essentially to Guest
> > utilities. Not to FreeBSD host in general, and in particular USB
> > functionality under the host in particular.
> >
> > While my VB post got a lot of evasive/contradictory statements from
> > the VB developers (stuff like initial assertion - later corrected -
> > that VB extension pack is not platform specific), one interesting
> > statement of the folks there is that OHCI functionality is provided
> > out-of-the box and not platform-specific implementation.
> >
> > Since OHCI only works for keyboard/mouse under FreeBSD, is it
> > possible that FreeBSD porters actually disable OHCI at our end (in
> > the process of porting the VB sources for FreeBSD) ?
> >
> > Thanks for any information.
> > Manish Jain
> >  
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/virtualization-host-virtualbox.html#virtualization-virtualbox-usb-support
> 
> TheVirtualBox™extension pack is not available for FreeBSD hosts.
> Without the extension pack, the FreeBSD host cannot passUSBports
> through to guest operating systems.
> 
> So, on VB website we can see this: 
> https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#intro-installing
> 
> And we can download the extension pack here: 
> http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.1.26/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.26-117224.vbox-extpack
> 
> So, how to install it? Maybe this can help you? 
> https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-extpack
> 

A while back, I wrote directly to Frank Mehnert - Oracle Software
Development Director about this issue.


He replied as follows:


---------------------------------------------

Hi Mario,

just saw your other mail and I just saw this mail again. Sorry for the
late response!

On Thursday 02 June 2016 16:06:01 you wrote:
 
> I've been using VB with my beloved FreeBSD since its early days, when
> USB 1.0 used to be the standard.
> 
> Now a days, it is no longer viable, even if we downgrade the USB
> connection through the OS to usb 1.0. The device shows up on the guest
> but that is as far as it goes. It simply doesn't work.
> 
> I see that you have pre-compiled extension packs for Windows and Linux
> hosts. VB compiles and works great through the ports in FreeBSD. The
> highest available official version 4.3.38 but through the works of
> Jung-uk Kim, I am running 5.0.20 right now! If it wasn't for this USB
> issue, VB would be completely operational on FBSD!
> 
> You probably have been asked about this a lot, but do you see a
> possibility anywhere in the future, of providing a pre-compiled
> extension pack for FreeBSD? I never understood why Windows and Linux
> have it and FreeBSD doesn't. Is there a particular reason for it?
> 
> Is there anyway I can help with this matter? Anybody in particular I
> can plead for this?
> 
> Again, my apologies for barging in, and thank you for reading and for
> your time.  

hard to say. I guess if the USB devices worked in the past then this
was probably because the due to the missing Extension Pack the devices
were forced to use the USB 1 mode.

Providing Extenicode for FreeBSD is not impossible but would require
some effort. The most important part is probably to find a compatible
build environment.

I don't say "No" in general but we need to think about this in more
detail.

Kind regards,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert | Software Development Director, VirtualBox
ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG | Werkstr. 24 | 71384 Weinstadt,
Germany

---------------------------------------------

Maybe a contact from a "high" FBS foundation member could help in
moving this forward. I don't know.

-- 
Mario Lobo
http://www.mallavoodoo.com.br
FreeBSD since 2.2.8 [not Pro-Audio.... YET!!]
 
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, 
because that would also stop you from doing clever things."