After a fresh installation of Debian Lenny, I wanted to use a quite very recent version of VirtualBox.
One solution is the Debian backports : Here are the VirtualBox packages available
To make VirtualBox work well, you need to install the following packages : virtualbox-ose, virtualbox-ose-qt and virtualbox-ose-source

Here are the version(s) available for each package mentioned above :

virtualbox-ose : 3.0.12-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for i386)
virtualbox-ose-qt : 3.0.12-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for i386)
virtualbox-ose-source : 3.1.4-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for all platforms)

As you may have noticed, virtualbox-ose-source version is higher than the ones above. As a test, I installed all of them. I compiled the modules needed with module-assistant. I failed to launch a virtual machine.
Here is the message I got :

VBoxHeadless: Error -1912 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
VBoxHeadless: RTR3Init failed with rc=-1912

Running as a normal user the command vboxheadless, I encountered the same message :

fool@localhost:~$ vboxheadless

VBoxHeadless: Error -1912 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
VBoxHeadless: RTR3Init failed with rc=-1912

VBoxHeadless: Tip! It may help to reinstall VirtualBox.

The only workaround I found for this problem is to install the Sun’s package available here .
To install it :

root@localhost:~# dpkg -i virtualbox-3.1_3.1.4-57640_Debian_lenny_i386.deb

Make sure that the good modules are loaded correctly :

root@localhost:~# lsmod |grep vbox

vboxnetadp              6436  0
vboxnetflt             12332  0
vboxdrv               155144  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

As a last test, run the following command :

root@localhost:~# /usr/bin/VBoxHeadless

You should have the message below :

Sun VirtualBox Headless Interface 3.1.4
(C) 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Usage:
-s, -startvm, –startvm <name|uuid>   Start given VM (required argument)
-v, -vrdp, –vrdp on|off|config       Enable (default) or disable the VRDP
server or don’t change the setting
-p, -vrdpport, –vrdpport <ports>     Comma-separated list of ports the VRDP
server can bind to. Use a dash between
two port numbers to specify a range
-a, -vrdpaddress, –vrdpaddress <ip>  Interface IP the VRDP will bind to
-c, -capture, –capture               Record the VM screen output to a file
-w, –width                           Frame width when recording
-h, –height                          Frame height when recording
-r, –bitrate                         Recording bit rate when recording
-f, –filename                        File name when recording.  The codec
used will be chosen based on the
file extension

A similar problem is registered in the Debian bug tracking system :
Bug #537864
Here is another solution to install a very recent version of VirtualBox :
http://code.google.com/p/virtualboxoseforifl/
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