How to install Virtualbox in Debian 10 Buster

By xngo on July 20, 2019

At the time of this writing, packages for VirtualBox are not available in Debian 10 and won't be in buster-backports either. However, there is a way to install it. This article will help you install VirtualBox in Debian 10 Buster by using Ubuntu packages.

Add Ubuntu repository

Add Oracle public key to your system so that you can access their repositories. Run the following command to add the key.

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

The VirtualBox packages for Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (Bionic Beaver) can be used in Debian 10 Buster. So, let's add the following entry at the end of /etc/apt/sources.list file so that we can fetch VirtualBox packages from Bionic repository.

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

Install VirtualBox

Run the following commands to install Virtualbox in Debian 10 Buster.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y virtualbox-6.0 libqt5opengl5 libqt5x11extras5

Test run VirtualBox

Run virtualbox from your terminal. VirtualBox window should open, like the following.

Debian 10 Buster - VirtualBox

About the author

Xuan Ngo is the founder of OpenWritings.net. He currently lives in Montreal, Canada. He loves to write about programming and open source subjects.