[Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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Raspero
Posts: 27
Joined: 29. Oct 2018, 00:35

[Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Post by Raspero »

I am running an Arch Linux virtual machine in Virtual Box 6.0.5 in an Ubuntu 16.04 host. I am trying to install the guest additions.

The first problem is that when I go to "Devices" in the LXDE desktop and insert the guest .iso file, it does not autorun. OK, no problem there, but neither does the optical drive appear in the file system, plus there is no "media" directory in the file system. But when I go to the Virtual Box GUI and look in the "settings", it shows that the guest.iso file has indeed been inserted in the virtual optical drive.

How do I mount the virtual optical drive in Arch? I have tried the command: "mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom" but that is no good.

I used "mkdir /media/cdrom" to creat the needed directories and then ran "mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom". The guest .iso image is now there, but I cannot get it to run. I double click on the autorun.sh file and when it tells me the file is execuble and asks if I want to run it, I say "yes" but nothing happens.

A second question is that, even if I get it to run, the Arch wiki says "do not install the guest additions from the .iso file that is installed with Virtual Box in your host system, but use the guest additions from the Arch repository. The problem with that is, due to the recent Ubuntu kernel incompatibility, I am having to run VBox 6.0.5 (a test edition), and the guest additions in the Arch repository is 6.0.4. That won't work.

The wiki says I can reconfigure the 6.0.5 guest.iso so it will work in Arch by running the command " rcvboxdrv" as root. When I run that command I get "command not found".

Richard
Last edited by socratis on 14. Apr 2019, 16:01, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Fixed formatting.
Raspero
Posts: 27
Joined: 29. Oct 2018, 00:35

Re: [Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Post by Raspero »

It got solved as I continued to do my homework. For those of you who may be interested in building an Arch machine in Virtual Box, I will explain:

I am running three Arch virtual machines. One headless, one with the Budgie desktop, one with the LXDE desktop. In either of the desktops, when I went to "Device" "Insert Guest .iso in virtual drive", the drive would not appear in the file system. But when I went to the VBox GUI, and looked in storage, it showed it as loaded.

What I did was to shut down Arch, remove the Guest .iso from the drive, then boot up Arch in terminal mode (not running the desktop) and create the directories. /media/cdrom in root. Then in the VBox GUI I inserted the Guest .iso in the optical drive and ran the following commands:
"sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom", and when I changed to the /media/cdrom directory and ran the command "ls", it showed the Guest .iso files were now there.

I ran: "sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run" and Guest Additions installed. When I opened the desktop, the desktop went to full screen and showed the shared host folder.

Richard
socratis
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Re: [Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Post by socratis »

Raspero wrote:boot up Arch in terminal mode (not running the desktop) and create the directories. /media/cdrom in root
I'm not sure if you had to boot in CLI mode for that to work, I believe it would have worked if you created the "/media/cdrom" in GUI mode as well...

Glad you got it going, and thanks for both providing the solution and marking the topic as [Solved] ;)
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andyp73
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Re: [Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Post by andyp73 »

Raspero wrote:...and create the directories. /media/cdrom
You don't specifically have to mount it to /media/cdrom you can use any pre-existing directory as the mount point. Unix systems since time began have provided the /mnt folder for that purpose.

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hhruj-0p
Posts: 1
Joined: 19. Jan 2024, 19:54

Re: [Solved] Cannot install Guest Additions in Arch Linux guest machine

Post by hhruj-0p »

Thank you @Rasperro. I googled the whole internet and your solution worked for me. :)
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