Virtualbox prompts "Kernel driver not installed (rc =-1908 )".

Virtualbox prompts "Kernel driver not installed (rc =-1908 )".

Overview: Many Linux users often encounter the Virtualbox "Kernel driver not installed (rc =-14.04)" problem when installing Virtualbox on Ubuntu 1908, here is a solution to this problem.

Many Linux users install the latest deb file Virtualbox (4.3.12) downloaded from virtualbox.org on Ubuntu 14.04. This problem often occurs when the installation is complete and Virtualbox is running, the following error is reported:

Kernel driver not installed (rc =-1908)
The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with/dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing
'/Etc/init. d/vboxdrv setup'
As root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

The cause of the problem is that some kernel drivers have not been compiled, so Virtualbox cannot run properly. In fact, it is not difficult to solve this problem on Ubuntu. The following are the steps to solve this problem:

First, install the header file and build tool for the kernel.

$ Sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant

$ Sudo m-a prepare

Next, compile the virtualbox kernel driver command mentioned in the previous error report.

$ Sudo/etc/init. d/vboxdrv setup

Compilation should run normally and output similar results after a period of time:

$ Sudo/etc/init. d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules... done.
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules... done.
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules... done.

Run Virtualbox again and it will become normal.

For the latest Ubuntu 17.10 VirtualBox 5.2.2 installation and related problems, see