How To Install virtualbox-guest-utils on Ubuntu 18.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install virtualbox-guest-utils on Ubuntu 18.04.
What is virtualbox-guest-utils
virtualbox-guest-utils is:
VirtualBox is a free x86 virtualization solution allowing a wide range of x86 operating systems such as Windows, DOS, BSD or Linux to run on a Linux system.
This package provides the non-X11 guest utilities for VirtualBox. These utilities are meant to be run inside the virtual machine. They provide closer integration and allow to share data through shared folders between the host system and the virtual machine.
Either the virtualbox-guest-dkms or the virtualbox-guest-source package is also required in order to compile the kernel modules needed for virtualbox-guest-utils.
There are three methods to install virtualbox-guest-utils on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install virtualbox-guest-utils Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install virtualbox-guest-utils using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install virtualbox-guest-utils
Install virtualbox-guest-utils Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install virtualbox-guest-utils using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install virtualbox-guest-utils
Install virtualbox-guest-utils Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install virtualbox-guest-utils using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install virtualbox-guest-utils
How To Uninstall virtualbox-guest-utils on Ubuntu 18.04
To uninstall only the virtualbox-guest-utils package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-guest-utils
Uninstall virtualbox-guest-utils And Its Dependencies
To uninstall virtualbox-guest-utils and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove virtualbox-guest-utils
Remove virtualbox-guest-utils Configurations and Data
To remove virtualbox-guest-utils configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge virtualbox-guest-utils
Remove virtualbox-guest-utils configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove virtualbox-guest-utils configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge virtualbox-guest-utils
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install virtualbox-guest-utils package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
