The already as simple as I could get it after a few hours of work version is this:
It doesn’t get much simpler anytime soon.
- Cause of issue: Software not developed by third parties (meaning not Whonix) (i.e. Linux kernel; VirtualBox) got updated and is now incompatible. And your Linux distribution Ubuntu not providing an up to date VirtualBox version either.
- Abstract task: get a newer version of VirtualBox.
The issue is unspecific to Whonix.
This means you don’t need necessarily depend on instructions from the Whonix website. These are supplementary. If you find the supplemental instructions on the Whonix website useful, that’s great. These always maximize security as far as that’s reasonably possible (not asking for highly unlikely stuff such as downloading the VirtualBox source code and auditing it by yourself).
If you find instructions elsewhere such as on the VirtualBox website, you can use them. Maybe the instructions can be as simple as a one liner but it would be less secure. So making the instructions simpler while not compromising on security is very hard.
In the future, the instructions might get a bit simpler thanks to extrepo - safely adding repos.
Already under consideration: Whonix VirtualBox Integration and Upgrades - #8 by Patrick
But even if extrepo, it would still be quite a few commands to copy/paste.
The only way to make it really easy would be to provide first class integration of VirtualBox into a Linux distribution. That might happen under the Kicksecure project and/or Whonix-Host. But that will take a long time until it’s there and obviously asking to change the host linux distribution is also a big ask.
references: