Hello,

I'm running BOINC on an old laptop of mine, using Xubuntu 15.10. Everything is 32-bit, as the processor does not yet support 64-bit.
BOINC has been running fine on it for a long time. I'm using 7.6.6, downloaded from the repositories via the standard installation procedure using aptitude.

Today I wanted to add VirtualBox, so I would also be able to crunch for projects requiring that. The VirtualBox installation, version 5.0.10, also from the repositories, went fine, and it's working. I can make a VM on it. However, BOINC does not see it. When I attach to a project requiring VirtualBox, vLHC@home in this case, I can't get work because the server detects that VirtualBox is not installed. Obviously it is, only BOINC doesn't see it.

I'm not very good at troubleshooting in Linux, because I'm primarily a Windows user. However, I did try to add the 'boinc' user to the 'vboxusers' group, but this changed nothing.

I did a VirtualBox installation as complete as possible, adding the extension pack, installing the dkms and linux-headers packages and all dependencies. I have no idea where the problem is. I don't think it's with VirtualBox, because that seems to be functioning as it should.

Do I need to give BOINC directions to where it can find the VirtualBox installation? I did nothing to deviate from standard installation paths or anything like that.

Any help is much appreciated! Many thanks in advance.

I think your problem is that since you installed BOINC from repository that it's running as a daemon. Looking at LHC's FAQ, it says: BOINC must not be installed as a service (Windows) or a daemon (GNU/Linux) because this project uses Virtual Machines. When BOINC is installed as a service or a daemon it runs as an unprivileged user and cannot run any virtual machine.
and
For GNU/Linux users the recommendation is to use the official BOINC GNU/Linux installer instead of the packaged ones for your distribution.

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There was a typo in the client. It was looking for VboxManage while the correct name is VBoxManage. The typo might go back to 7.6.6 or earlier.

Michgelsen, try updating BOINC to 7.6.22 if it's available in backports repository (see Software Sources) or from LocutusOfBorg's PPA.

Thank you very much Juha! I got 7.6.22 from LocutusOfBorg's PPA, because it wasn't available from the normal repositories, updated BOINC that way, and voilà, BOINC now detects the VirtualBox installation.

This worked wonders for me too!! In particular, my BOINC GPU's had not been working in well over a year (possibly going close to 2 years). It must have been the new BOINC version(s).

(I tried the xhost + but it only messed up my X config.)

Reverting back to 7.6.22 has pretty much solved all my BOINC problems. I hope any newer linux versions get patched up so they have all the functionality of 7.6.22

Many thanks to both of you