Kernel Driver Not Installed (rc=-1908) on OpenSUSE 12.3

If you have difficulties starting your virtual machines under OpenSUSE 12.3, we will show how hou can solve the issue.

This is the normal way to install Oracle VM VirtualBox on a OpenSUSE 12.3 system using Zypper (as root):

# zypper in virtualbox

Everything will work initially, but after some updates it might reach a point where VirtualBox will not be able to start your virtual machines and will give the following error:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module available for the current kernel (3.5.0-18-generic) or it failed to load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

So, we do the following:

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

If it still fails, perform the following:

# zypper in make gcc gcc-c++ kernel-source kernel-syms

And now run:

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Now you should be able to start your virtual machines in VirtualBox. 😉