Fedora 12 Guest Additions

[louc@comporium.net]

I have been able to use guest additions with Fedora 11 (64 bit), but still no luck with fc12. I even tried to upgrade to the testing Rawhide version (Fedora 13), but still no luck. I completely reinstalled clean at least half a dozen times, but the result is always the same. I've checked every recent post on the Fedora and virtual box forums. I wish I had something to offer, but I'm still in the same position as you are.

[chuckh1958]

I am having this same issue. I am running Fedora 12 in vbox 3.1.4, with Win XP SP3 as the host. My fedora guest has all the necessary packages installed and all packages are up to date as of today. The installation of the guest additions went smoothly - no errors or warnings. When I reboot the VM after installation it goes through the boot progress bar, then I just get a black screen. No errors, no messages, I cannot do anything in the VM. No GUI, can't switch to a differnt TTY, nothing. Can anyone help?

I should also mention that before installing guest additions I did switch off selinux. I was able to successfully boot after this though.

[EXuDHA]

Hi
I have the same problem.
It arises from the conflict of the new Linux kernel 2.6.32.9 and the current Guest Additions.
You can return to the previous kernel 2.6.31.12 and reinstall Guest Additions.

Best regards.

[chuckh1958]

How do I roll back to the previous kernel if I can't even get a TTY?

[vernix]

That's easy.
When you start the virtualbox immediately hit any key. This will drop you into the grub menu.
Edit the command line by appending the word single to the kernel line , continue the boot, and you are in.

[chuckh1958]

Does fedora automatically install grub on a single boot machine where it's the only O/S?

When it starts to boot, pressing keys does nothing. Fedora just moves on to showing the progress bar and eventually hangs.

[JustinLHeuser]

Another way to get to the text-only and single-user modes is to boot your Fedora LiveCD, mount your hard disk (just open the Computer icon and then your hard disk), and edit /etc/inittab. You're looking for something like 'id:5:initdefault:'. Change the number to 3 for text mode, or 1 for single-user. There's no vim on the LiveCD, but it does have vi.

Be careful not to do anything else, or you may end up with an unusable system. Of course, it's unusable now, so ...

When you reboot (without the LiveCD) your system will come up in the selected mode.

While you're there, you might want to consider applying the patch given in http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/6198. Since evidently you have already installed Guest Additions, you just need to edit the file (found in /usr/src/vboxvideo-3.1.4). This patch got me going again.

If you end up regenerating an xorg.conf file, you may need to be in runmode 3 rather than 1; at least, that was my experience. See Sasquatch's "How to install Linux Guest Additions + Xorg config" for the details.

Thanks to Frank Mehnert, in the thread "NEW Incompatibility, VBox 3.1.4 and recent Fed 12 updates" (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 96#p128286) for pointing out this solution.

[EXuDHA]

Hi
You can use F7 for change kernel to boot. Press F7 after logo screen virtualbox.
I find solution this problem http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... lit=fedora

post by Frank Mehnert » 10. Mar 2010, 16:31

Now i have working system!

[rexbinary]

Does fedora automatically install grub on a single boot machine where it's the only O/S?

When it starts to boot, pressing keys does nothing. Fedora just moves on to showing the progress bar and eventually hangs.

Yes Fedora does install grub on a single boot machine so you will still be able to select your kernel. You must press 'Shift' specifically to reveal the grub menu at boot, not any key.

[reece]

I have trouble making this work reliably with vbox 3.1.4 on Mac OS X host/Ubuntu guest, but it does work. I find it particularly effective to hold the shift key down while clicking furiously in the window during the time the VirtualBox logo is being displayed.

[dsmurl]

This is my first time to use VB and I think it's great. I was installing a fresh copy of XP on my current Mint 8 host and I noticed this problem. Once windows was installed I went straight to doing updates. I rifled through several of them and then I came upon the SP3 update. I figured this one would take a while and so I started it and then starting doing some research on how to share folders and USB drives. While the SP3 was installing I read up on the VB Guest Additions. I went to the Device menu and clicked on "Install Guest Additions". The window popped up fine and asked me if I wanted to install them. Just at that moment the SP3 completed and I thought "Maybe I should restart windows before doing this VB guest additions thing." So I cancelled out of the VB guest additions install and restarted for the SP3 upgrade. The machine rebooted and ever since then "Install Guest Additions" has done nothing. So, I can't help but feel like it has less to do with the host and more to do with the SP3 changes. I don't know though. I hope this helps find a better fix for this problem.

- Cheers,
Dsmurl