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VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 9. Apr 2009, 12:45
by steffan
Hi,

I'm trying to enable the KDE 4.2.1 "desktop effects" using the new OpenGL support in VirtualBox 2.2. My guest is a KDE version of Fedora Core 10.

I've enabled 3D acceleration for the VM and set the video memory to 128MB. I've installed the latest VirtualBox Linux additions.

When I try to enable "desktop effects", I get the incredibly helpful message:
Failed to activate desktop effects using the given configuration options. Settings will be reverted to their previous values. Check you X configuration. You may also consider changing advanced options, especially changing the compositing type.
Changing the advanced options does not help.

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf file was dropped by VirtualBox, and only contains:

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "VirtualBox Video Card"
        Driver          "vboxvideo"
EndSection
I've tried adding the following, but it doesn't help:

Code: Select all

Section "Extensions"
        Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
Looking through likely log files, I find the following in both /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/kdm.log:
(EE) AIGLX error: vboxvideo does not export required DRI extension
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
Any ideas? This isn't an area I know anything about...

Regards,

Steffan

P.S. In case it's relevant, I have an nvidia card in my host machine.

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 9. Apr 2009, 14:22
by Sasquatch
I have nVidia too on my Host. I have Compiz-Fusion running in 9.04 Xubuntu just fine. Check my howto at the top, you need that xorg.conf file to get it working. Now are you sure that you enabled 3D and installed the 2.2 GA?

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 9. Apr 2009, 15:13
by steffan
Hi Sasquatch,

Yep, I'm sure that I've enabled 3D and installed the latest additions. I've now done this on two computers. Though if anyone knows how to verify the additions that are installed... it's always good to verify that the install really did work.

As far as I understand, KDE 4 doesn't use compiz-fusion - it has compositing built into kwin. I did try installing compiz-fusion just in case, but this didn't help. I'm guessing that whatever checks kwin does are what is failing (though selecting "disable functionality checks" in the UI doesn't help). That said, the error message I reported below appears concerning.

Regards,

Steffan

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 9. Apr 2009, 21:20
by tommy.snello
the problem seems to be only in kde 4.2 (kubuntu jaunty),
gnome-compiz (ubuntu jaunty) and kde 4.1 (kubuntu intrepid) work

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 9. Apr 2009, 21:29
by Beno@
same problem here on opensuse factory: KDE 4.2.1 and xorg 1.6

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 10. Apr 2009, 20:01
by undu
I also have this error, I'm using a nvidia geforce go 7600, but using GNOME as the desktop manager.
I'm installing the ga from a mounted image named VBOXADDITIONS_2.2.0_45846

Here's the part of /var/log/Xorg.0.log where it seems to fail
(II) Next line is added to allow vboxvideo_drv.so to appear as whitelisted driver
(II) The file referenced, is *NOT* loaded
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//ati_drv.so
(EE) AIGLX error: vboxvideo does not export required DRI extension
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
(II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so
(II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0
(II) VBoxVideo(0): Setting screen physical size to 359 x 203

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 11. Apr 2009, 13:46
by Leonid
undu wrote:I also have this error, I'm using a nvidia geforce go 7600, but using GNOME as the desktop manager.
I'm installing the ga from a mounted image named VBOXADDITIONS_2.2.0_45846

Here's the part of /var/log/Xorg.0.log where it seems to fail
(II) Next line is added to allow vboxvideo_drv.so to appear as whitelisted driver
(II) The file referenced, is *NOT* loaded
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//ati_drv.so
(EE) AIGLX error: vboxvideo does not export required DRI extension
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
(II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so
(II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0
(II) VBoxVideo(0): Setting screen physical size to 359 x 203
That's expected behaviour. As comment in the log says, it's added only to allow compiz script to grep log for a whitelisted driver name.
Kwin works different from compiz, but it should be possible to force it running in direct rendering mode (default compiz mode) which does not require additional opengl extensions on XServer side.

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 11. Apr 2009, 15:49
by Beno@
i have the same log, but what does this line refers to:
(EE) AIGLX error: vboxvideo does not export required dri extension

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 12. Apr 2009, 20:34
by vbuser123
tommy.snello wrote:the problem seems to be only in kde 4.2 (kubuntu jaunty),
gnome-compiz (ubuntu jaunty) and kde 4.1 (kubuntu intrepid) work
I can't use compositing with VB 2.2.0 and Jaunty/GNOME guest as well. On activation it prints "looking for driver" and then "An error occured".
The only error in my Xorg.o.log says

Code: Select all

(EE) AIGLX error: Calling driver entry point failed(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
This is no important issue to me, I posted this just for the record ;)

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 14. Jun 2009, 14:25
by urnew
I got no such error in my log but Desktop effects only worked once, when I enabled them for the first time. (transparency effect when moving windows)
Also I set it to Xrender at that time because I thought OGL was not supported (I have VBox 2.2.4 with Guest additions on XpSp3 32bit with a 64bit Debian Squeeze guest with KDE 4.2.2.
I disabled and tried to enable it again and now it won't work anymore.
I followed the HOWTO at the top of this forum for xorg.conf.

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 2. Jul 2009, 14:45
by Sasquatch
Currently, there are problems with the desktop effects shipped with KDE. They don't work, as you all figured out. If you want to use effects, all I can advise now is to use Compiz-Fusion, instead of KDE's own desktop effects.

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 26. Jul 2009, 13:07
by JesperW
The workaround is to go to the "All Effects" tab and press "Apply" there!!!

Somehow this gets around the problem that XRender is not allowed as a compositing type.

This bug has been around for some time in KDE. Go vote for it!

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=174853

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 30. Nov 2009, 23:10
by Phekos
JesperW wrote:The workaround is to go to the "All Effects" tab and press "Apply" there!!!

Somehow this gets around the problem that XRender is not allowed as a compositing type.

This bug has been around for some time in KDE. Go vote for it!
That still didn't work for me. I still get the same error message

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 27. May 2010, 23:31
by dsh21
i was able to get most of the desktop effects working for mandriva 2010 and kde4.3.5 under win7 64 bit and vbox 3.2. i changed rendering from opengl to xrender. not sure how applicable this is to 2.2 version.

Re: VirtualBox 2.2 and KDE 4 "desktop effects"

Posted: 28. May 2010, 21:35
by Sasquatch
That's going from full hardware accelerated 3D to crappy software rendering. When hardware can fail, software rendering works 99% of the time.