Xubuntu 16.04 and size of window

[janpeter]

Hi,

I have an application coming as VBox VM in Xubuntu 16.04. After some work I managed to install guest additions and shared folders made to work.

However, the automatic re-sizing of the Xubuntu guest window, when I drag and make the window larger does not work properly. I get a white frame around the screen instead and the size remains 1024x768. In my other VM with Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.04 etc I have automatic adjustment to arbitrary screen size.

I wonder if this is a limitation of Xubuntu itself, since in the settings in this OS you can only choose three different resolutions of the screen. Or is this something that does not work in the guest addition or some parameter setting that must be done?

I have tried to in VBox/Preferences/Display change from Automatic to Hint and choose 1950x1080 but but that did not affect the VM at all (after re-start of course).

Would appreciate some advice!

[Poil]

check the graphics card on your VM. Switch to VBoxVGA or VMSVGA if not on one of these.

[socratis]

We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

[janpeter]

Hi

Where do I find the graphic card of my VM?
I looked under settings of Display and other places but I cannot find it.
Searched the manual but for the graphic card but found little help.

Enclosed the log-file if of any help.

Thanks

[janpeter]

Hi again,

Briefly looking at the log-file shows that the actual guest addition is 5.0.18 while I run 5.2.22.
Could this be the problem?

An earlier problem with this VM (and still is) is how to mount the disk with guest-additions.

I did the following and could at least get shared folders to work, still re-sizing of the VM-screen does not work.

---

1. Before starting the VM open up settings/storage and for the Controller select add Optical Drive and choose Leave empty
2. Start VM
3. Open terminal
1. Cd /media
2. Sudo apt-get install VirtualBox-guest-additions-iso
3. Sudp apt-get install VirtualBox-guest-utils
4. Shut down VM
4. Open
1. VM settings/Shared folders and choose folder you want to share
2. VM settings/Storage and for the Controller right-click and choose remove attachment
5. Start VM
6. Now the folders are shared!

See for more details https://openmodelica.org/forum/default- ... ion-issues

[mpack]

A choice of virtual graphics adapters is a v6.0.0 feature, so you will not find it in your 5.x VM. Therefore that suggestion was a red herring: your VM did not use any of the potentially buggy new options.

As to your Guest Additions, you don't have any installed. You do have additions installed for the Ubuntu fork of VirtualBox 5.0.18, which are not guaranteed to work at all in anything but the Ubuntu fork. If you want GAs which work in VirtualBox, you should install the VirtualBox GAs, not those of a third party possibly modified build.

[janpeter]

So, how do I then mount the guest addition disk from VirtualBox in the normal way?
I get an error message when I try to do that.

[mpack]

From the VM menu choose Devices|Insert Guest Additions CD image.... If you get an error message then you need to tell us what it is.

I notice that you have chosen Linux 2.6 as the guest OS version. I doubt that is correct. I'm no Linux expert, but I would have expected XUbuntu to be a variant of Ubuntu.

[janpeter]

Hi

I did again the procedure

1) Before starting the VM make the Optical disc ready and empty
2) Started VM and under VBox/Devices/Insert guest additions...
3) Then I get an icon of a disc on the desktop, but it is not mounted.
4) I right-click on the disc-icon and choose Mount Volume - then I get an error message that is enclosed.
5) I turn off the VM
6) I take the system log and download that and is also enclosed.

Concerning the type of VM I get that by choosing Help in the menu when running it.
It clearly state at the top in the document Xubuntu - welcome to Xubuntu 16.04 documentation!

The VM I did download from the organisation who develop the application software I am interested in
as a way to get it with a minimum of installation efforts. So I did not choose the type of Linux under General settings.

What would happen if I just try to change the general setting of type of Linux to Ubuntu - will it screw up the VM?
I can of course play with clone of the VM but still hard to evaluate such a test.

Thanks for your continued advice!

[mpack]

The Guest Additions bundled with VirtualBox are not called "VBox_GAs_5.2.22", so I don't understand how you could get that error while following my instructions with a standard build of VirtualBox. OTOH I don't use Linux, is that name just a mount point in the guest's media folder? Never mind, I just checked with a Linux VM of my own, and yes, it's just a mount point name.

Btw, is this a standard install of VirtualBox? I ask because I also see mention of Vagrant in the log.

As to questions along the lines of "will xxx destroy my VM", the only guaranteed way to proceed is to back up the VM folder first, then try xxx.

I guess we need to rule out that your GAs CD ISO might be corrupted on your host. You can download a fresh copy of it here. Use this file to replace the potential corrupted version in the VirtualBox application folder on your host. Remember to rename it correctly. To verify corruption in either the old or new download it could be useful to compare MD5 checksums. Expected md5 checksums for 5.2.22 are here.

[janpeter]

Hi,

From my side it is as standard installation as it can be. I mean I download form a site the whole VM with everything installed.
Then I do the standard procedure to bring that VM into my system. The site is https://openmodelica.org/download/virtual-machine

I see that they now have a very recent new VM that I will try to install and perhaps works better.
In the folder where the VM is I now see there are two files with "Vagrant" in their name, but not mentioned in the readme file.
But in the text on the homepage they indicate how you could do to run this VM under Vagrant and then these files are needed,
what I understand.

Whether this VM is built and exported from VirtualBox originally or from some other software is not clear to me.

I doubt that my guest-addition file at my host is corrupted. What I understand this file is update every time I upgrade VBox
since I then need to re-install guest additions on all VMs I have. I have had the same problem with this VM from OpenModelica
for more than half a year. And there have been several updated of VBox since then.

I try to get more information on the subject in the OpenModelica forum before I continue.
https://openmodelica.org/forum/default- ... ion-issues

[janpeter]

I have got the information that the VM was actually built in Vagrant and exported from there.
Does this fact explain the difficulties to mount disk with guest additions etc?

[mpack]

I'm afraid I can't say what effect Vagrant has since I have never used Vagrant and have no idea what they do to their VMs. All I know is that the VM was not created in the normal way.