Keyboard input on Ubuntu Gnome 64 guest install...

[karlkras]

From a Windows 10 pro host I'm trying to install Ubuntu/Gnome 16.10 image. Install seems fine, but upon VM reboot there's no keyboard input.
What am I missing?

[mpack]

Make sure you aren't grabbing the host keyboard using a USB filter. The host needs a keyboard, if nothing else because that's where a VM gets its keystrokes from - just like every other host app.

[karlkras]

Make sure you aren't grabbing the host keyboard using a USB filter.

Well I didn't choose to configure a usb filter for anything. Why would such an option be applied unprompted unless this is a default?

[socratis]

This is not the default, that's for sure. The question is: do you have any USB filters enabled?
VM Settings » Ports » USB » USB Device Filters. Is there anything there? If so, delete it.

[karlkras]

Nope, no usb filters.

usb.png (98.46 KiB) Viewed 5128 times

[socratis]

With the VM shut down completely (not paused or saved), right-click on the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save the "VBox.log" (just the first one), ZIP it and attach it in your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

[karlkras]

sure... here it is. thanks!

[socratis]

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Anything running on the host that might interfere with the keyboard? Like iType, etc.?

[karlkras]

Nope, nothing like that running on this system.

[socratis]

No clue then. There's only one thing to try, but I'm not sure if it's going to make a difference. Increase the display RAM to at least 32 MB.

There is a problem with your guest additions. They're old (5.1.6) but more importantly, they're the Ubuntu fork, not the official ones. The problem is how to uninstall them, since you don't have keyboard access.

BTW, how do you know you have no keyboard access? What happens if you press F12 within fractions of a second after you launch the VM and while you still see the VirtualBox BIOS image? Does it take you to the boot menu? Something like:

VirtualBox temporary boot device selection

Detected Hard disks:

  IDE controller:
    1) Primary Master

Other boot devices:
 f) Floppy
 c) CD-ROM
 l) LAN

 b) Continue booting

[karlkras]

Okay, this is weird... I'll try to explain, but it's, well, weird.
On initial start up, as I mentioned, mouse and keyboard input "weren't working" in the VM. However I noticed in the vm preview pain of the VirtualBox manager (VBM) that its rendering of the VM was showing the Gnome login screen, while in the actual VM, it showed nothing. So I set focus on VBM and then back to the VM and the page refreshed to match what the rendering in VBM was showing. Now from the VM as I typed, I saw nothing in the VM, but again, I could see the the entries being shown in the VBM rendering preview. So I completed the login in this fashion, hit enter and viola, it logs me in. Now that it's running it appears to have no problem at all with my input devices and I'm back to what I would consider normal (although I'm getting warnings that I'm already low on storage space on root).

This seems to be some contention between the VBM and the VM display? Just did a shut down and restart and the same behavior. Irritating, but I can work around it. Is there an option to turn of the VBM interference (assuming this is the problem)?

[socratis]

Turn off 3D acceleration. The VirtualBox Manager (I kinda like VBM ) does not "interfere" with the VM, it can't. What's in the way is the 3D acceleration. Most probably because you have the old GAs installed.

So, first order of business is to remove the old GAs, and install the current ones from the Devices » Insert GA CD. If that doesn't work, then disable temporarily the 3D acceleration to work around that.

So, after all it's not a "keyboard input" issue, it's "I don't see what I'm typing, if I'm typing" issue...

[karlkras]

Turn off 3D acceleration. The VirtualBox Manager (I kinda like VBM ) does not "interfere" with the VM, it can't. What's in the way is the 3D acceleration. Most probably because you have the old GAs installed.

So, first order of business is to remove the old GAs, and install the current ones from the Devices » Insert GA CD. If that doesn't work, then disable temporarily the 3D acceleration to work around that.

By "GA" I'm assuming you're referring to the Graphics Accelerator drivers for the guest system? Actually it would seem my first order of business is figuring out why my Linux system is already out of storage.

I've configured it with 8g (not a ton, but would seem to be adequate for a relatively bare bones system...) as a "dynamically allocated storage" and VBM is reporting as 4.46 actual size.

But when I attempted to download the linux drivers for my graphics card I get a out of storage error. Root is showing virtually no storage available.

I think I'm going to delete/abort his installation altogether and go get a different image to install.

[socratis]

• By GAs I mean the Guest Additions that come with VirtualBox. See the User Manual.
• You're forgetting the swap space, which is mostly equal to your RAM. 8GB is way too small for a VM these days.
• Dynamic doesn't mean that it will ever grow above 8GB. 8GB is the maximum and the dynamic part means that it doesn't allocate 8GB from the get-go, but only as needed. With a max of 8GB.
• You cannot install the drivers for your graphics card, because your virtual machine has a virtual graphics card.

[karlkras]

Okay, now I'm feeling really stupid. I didn't notice when I was setting up my storage that I could (and should have) bumped the default from it's paltry 8g default to something a bit more normal.

Anyway, I started from scratch. I grabbed the actual Ubuntu 14.04.5 iso distro, paid a lot more attention to the settings on the installation, and on first startup it's running exactly as I would have expected. Right now it's updating to Ubuntu 16.04 so I think I'm good. Sorry for the wasted bandwidth, and thanks for your help.