Hello Jeremy, (and security team) >I installed Debian Stretch today using the January 23 weekly >netinstall image. I installed to a VirtualBox guest (the host is >Ubuntu 17.04 Alpha). The install went well except for two issues. > >1. I chose to install the GNOME desktop. tasksel had some kind of >error near the end of downloading packages. Maybe some transient >network error. When I re-ran the task, it suggested I install some >virtualbox-ose-something package. The install completed successfully.
virtualbox-ose is dead and removed, not sure why/who is pulling it in >2. When I rebooted after install, gdm did not start and my console was >flickering really bad. Along with the console flickering, I could not >reliably enter my password since keypresses were getting dropped. I >tried booting into recovery mode but since I did not set a root >password (I prefer to use sudo), Debian gave me an error about the >root account being locked and after I pressed Enter as prompted, it >continued a normal boot. After about 5 minutes, the flickering >stopped. I guess this is systemd eagerly retrying a failed service >until it reaches its timeout. > >journalctl -xb revealed that gdm ""could not find drm kms device". I >couldn't find anything useful by searching for that message on Google. >I then checked to see whether the VirtualBox guest utils were >installed. They weren't. So I had to enable unstable in my apt >sources, then >sudo apt -t unstable install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 >sudo reboot > >gdm works great now. exactly >3. Something needs to be done about whatever in the installer suggests >installing the virtualbox-ose package. Since I clicked OK, I thought >it *did* install something useful for VirtualBox but I don't think it >did. probably that suggestion should be updated to virtualbox-guest-x11 >4. I have not had the #2 problem with other distros. Ubuntu includes >some minimal VirtualBox-compatible driver as part of its default >kernel. Could Debian do the same so that Debian will actually run on >VirtualBox? it was nacked by Debian Kernel Team when I asked it >5. As far as the drivers go, if they aren't in a Debian release, then >once someone actually gets Debian running, I guess they'll either just >keep whatever drivers they installed the first time. Or maybe they'll >use VirtualBox's guest additions iso to install the drivers. Neither >way offers automatic update of drivers. I feel this situation is worse >from a security perspective than having a Debian package that is at >least updated on major new Debian releases. fully agree, but I'm not in the position to revert this change >Why can't the Security Team treat VirtualBox like how it's been >treating WebKit1? Still have it in the archives but with a prominent >notice that Debian does not provide security updates. you might want to ask them :) >6. Assuming that VirtualBox won't be in the next stable Debian >release, I guess we need a page like mozilla.debian.net for it? > not sure what it means, but ok for me! I still think vbox is superior and I have to wait some minutes to make the screen stop flickering each time I install a new Debian iso in a VM. I really think not having it working out-of-the-box in a virtual machine is really a bad user experience. G.
