Go back and back up anything you want to keep in VirtualBox, like your virtual HDDs containing all your machine data. You will either have them or not, and that makes the next part very important: if you have it installed already and actually use it, do not touch anything yet.

It's going to show you the current VirtualBox packages in the repo. Next, start up Synaptic and search for 'Virtualbox' with the ALL filter (normal search). It's listed in your main Mint Menu by default. I recommend using Synaptic, which is already installed with Mint and is the official Debian GUI tool for APT management and installation. It's a helpful and friendly place for users, but it (intentionally) lacks advanced information on packages or the ability to see and select dependencies or individual parts of a package. The official Oracle VirtualBox site ( ) can be confusing and the Download page really fails to mention or emphasize the importance of dkms and Mint.įirst off, I'm going to suggest NOT downloading anything related to VirtualBox with the Mint Software Center.

That and I just wanted to make a handy post that explains the situation for new VirtualBox users here in this forum who want the latest version of this awesome program. I also stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I use VirtualBox on an almost-daily basis and have installed it a dozen times in both Mint and other Ubuntu flavors.

I have only been using Linux for a year or so. VirtualBox 5.1 no longer uses dkms modules, which is why I think going outside the official repo is a good idea in this instance. Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts regarding VirtualBox errors, errors upgrading to 5.1, and the DKMS modules errors that can happen. It will work for any xenial users (most of us) and can work for non-xenial if you make the appropriate changes! This post is for xenial-based users, specifically Mint 18 and 18.1 Serena.

Oracle vm virtualbox extension pack 5.1