Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha, Xorg 1.6, vboxvideo

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
srv1973
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Joined: 16. Jan 2008, 17:57

Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha, Xorg 1.6, vboxvideo

Post by srv1973 »

Hi all,

Ubuntu jaunty alpha 2 and higher contains an alpha (beta?) version of Xorg 1.6. The virtualbox (2.1.0) vboxvideo driver does not work with this version of Xorg
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
Are there any plans yet to provide a version of vboxvideo for the version 5 ABI of Xorg?

Rgds
srv1973
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Joined: 16. Jan 2008, 17:57

Post by srv1973 »

I can get Xorg running if I manually specify the vesa driver in xorg.conf, but of course then I don't have mouse integration, no resizing, and a max resolution of 800x600...
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

The GA will never install on a development release of Xorg. The video module will be skipped. This is done to avoid problems and to keep changing the code to make it work. The mouse should be installed, as not much changes with that (older mouse drivers should work on newer Xorg releases).

Keep in mind that all development releases of an OS and it's packages are not supported by VB.
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srv1973
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Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote:The GA will never install on a development release of Xorg. The video module will be skipped. This is done to avoid problems and to keep changing the code to make it work. The mouse should be installed, as not much changes with that (older mouse drivers should work on newer Xorg releases).

Keep in mind that all development releases of an OS and it's packages are not supported by VB.
Fair enough... having said that, according to this link, XOrg 1.6 is expected to be released early January (I know, let's be optimistic!). And that version is expected to be included in many high-profile linux distributions (for example Ubuntu 9.04, release somewhere in April), so it might be worth starting to look at this.

I've never even thought of looking at the code for this, but I'm not a bad programmer. Would the changes be substantial/difficult? Does anybody know if there is any documentation available for this?

Rgds
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

It may not look like something difficult, but you have to read up in the API documentation. It might work the same way as 1.5, but that is not certain until you read the docs.
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srv1973
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Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote:It may not look like something difficult, but you have to read up in the API documentation. It might work the same way as 1.5, but that is not certain until you read the docs.
OK, I spent the last couple of hours trying to find information on the API changes from 1.5 to 1.6, to no avail. The last modification date of the DESIGN.sgml file is from 2006, so that's not going to be much help. I've trawled the x.org mailing list for Nov and Dec as well, to no avail.

I even tried to find the information by tracing modifications to the vesa driver in the git master but my git-foo is non-existing, so that didn't work either.

I guess I'll just have to wait till an official release from the VB team...

Rgds
craigsn
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Joined: 30. Jun 2007, 23:48

Post by craigsn »

[quote="Sasquatch"]The mouse should be installed, as not much changes with that (older mouse drivers should work on newer Xorg releases).quote]

I have Windows Vista 32 running VB Host, with Ubuntu Jaunty 32 running. I understand about the video, not a problem, but the mouse integration is not working for me. I have tried the sudo sh /media/cdrom0/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run a couple of times, but do not get the integration at all.

Thanks for any help on this.

Craig
srv1973
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Post by srv1973 »

Craig wrote:
craigsn wrote:
Sasquatch wrote:The mouse should be installed, as not much changes with that (older mouse drivers should work on newer Xorg releases
I have Windows Vista 32 running VB Host, with Ubuntu Jaunty 32 running. I understand about the video, not a problem, but the mouse integration is not working for me. I have tried the sudo sh /media/cdrom0/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run a couple of times, but do not get the integration at all.
Actually, I think there have been changes to the mouse driver interface in Xserver 1.6. If I'm not mistaken the whole XInput(?) module has been updated. That would mean that the VBox mouse driver would need an update as well for Xserver 1.6.

Rgds
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

I'm not at the point of having an xserver running in my jaunty VM (installing from base CLI install). I do this in my spare time when I have some left (i.e. when I'm not managing this forum or busy with school).
As for now, you might want to look in this part of the forum for my xorg.conf file of another VM that has a working mouse setup. You might just need the vboxmouse driver entry in your xorg.conf file.
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srv1973
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Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote: As for now, you might want to look in this part of the forum for my xorg.conf file of another VM that has a working mouse setup. You might just need the vboxmouse driver entry in your xorg.conf file.
Good suggestion. I'll try sometime this weekend (I wiped my jaunty VM, so will need to reinstall from scratch).
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

I got my VM into xserver, installed a few GUI things, like xfce and that sort of things. Installed the GA, copied my xorg.conf config from 8.10 guest to 9.04 alpha 2. Got the error about version mismatch and module missing or something like that. So even though the GA are installed properly, they don't work.
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srv1973
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Joined: 16. Jan 2008, 17:57

Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote:I got my VM into xserver, installed a few GUI things, like xfce and that sort of things. Installed the GA, copied my xorg.conf config from 8.10 guest to 9.04 alpha 2. Got the error about version mismatch and module missing or something like that. So even though the GA are installed properly, they don't work.
Right, funny you just posted that, as I just finished re-installing a jaunty guest, and repeated the same tests. I changed the xorg.conf to force it to (try to) load the vboxmouse mouse driver, and am getting an ABI version mismatch about that one as well:

Code: Select all

(II) LoadModule: "vboxmouse"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//vboxmouse_drv.so
(II) Module vboxmouse: vendor="Sun Microsystems Inc."
        compiled for 0.0.0, module version = 1.0.0
        Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
        ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 2.0
(EE) module ABI major version (2) doesn't match the server's version (4)
(II) UnloadModule: "vboxmouse"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//vboxmouse_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "vboxmouse" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
(EE) No input driver matching `vboxmouse'
To reconfirm: Xserver 1.6 is supposedly updating the X-Input layer to version 1.5...

Rgds
srv1973
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Joined: 16. Jan 2008, 17:57

Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote:I got my VM into xserver, installed a few GUI things, like xfce and that sort of things. Installed the GA, copied my xorg.conf config from 8.10 guest to 9.04 alpha 2. Got the error about version mismatch and module missing or something like that. So even though the GA are installed properly, they don't work.
Btw. are you getting strange behaviour in the console as well? (eg. ctrl-alt-f1, log on and try to enter some commands on the command line...)
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

What strange behaviour should that be? I ran it as a CLI only for a while and no issues encountered (so far ;)).
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srv1973
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Joined: 16. Jan 2008, 17:57

Post by srv1973 »

Sasquatch wrote:What strange behaviour should that be? I ran it as a CLI only for a while and no issues encountered (so far ;)).
Hmm, that's strange... it's working correctly now...

Earlier, when my X-server didn't start properly, the consoles were behaving strangely: lines that were input prompts (such as the password prompt, or the shell prompt itself) didn't show. I could still type my password or shell commands, but nothing was echoed to the console. Command output (such as the output from 'ls') was showing properly, but then when I reached the bottom of the screen, it would not scroll up, and my console basically became useless.

Perhaps there was some strange interaction between the Xserver probing/trying to set up the video card that left the video card in some strange state.
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