seamless upgrade virtualbox from 4.2.0to 4.2.12

Question

I downloaded "Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ("Precise Pangolin") AMD64" from VB download page using Ubuntu Software Center to upgrade but it says:

conflicts with the installed package 'virtualbox-guest-additions-iso'

Normaly I'm using apt-get but that don't work for VB.

Can you share information how to upgrade vb 4.2.0 -> 4.2.2?

Answer 1

1. Remove the virtualbox-guest-additions-iso package. This will download on demand if required.
2. Install the new version (tip: you could add the virtualbox repository to keep apt-getting - see further down the download page)
3. Install the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack which comes under a separate license but is still monetarily free and available on the main download page.

Answer 2

The package virtualbox-guest-additions-iso is used by the official Ubuntu packages of VirtualBox to provide the ISO image of the VirtualBox guest additions. This image must be distributed as a separate package, because it is not published under a Free Software license.

The Oracle packages of VirtualBox, however, provide the guest additions ISO image directly, and not in a separate package, so the virtualbox-guest-additions-iso is not needed if you use the Oracle packages, and it should be removed prior to installing them.

Answer 3

So is this the procedure:

sudo apt-get remove dkms 

Download the file from virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

In order to fully update your guest system, open a terminal and run

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade 

Install DKMS

sudo apt-get install dkms

Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates and then proceed as in Oli's answer