virtualbox.org

Is there any combination of settings and a version of linux that works well with virtualbox and macos mojave? It just seems to get worse and worse as the version number grows. This product was flawless 5 years ago so much so that I abandoned wmware.

Trying to run this on a $7k imac pro and it's unbearably laggy and unresponsive. I've tried every possible permutation of settings, cpu cores, memory allocated and I can't get anywhere near the performance to make this usable. Just trying to get to a terminal to install the guest utilities is impossible. Literally takes 5 seconds for a single character I type to appear. Cpu usage for the virtualbox process shows 200% cpu usage in the host OS. Some combinations of settings gets cpu usage down to 80% but it's still unusable.

Distro's I've tried:
ubuntu 18.x
ubuntu mate 18.x
centos 7
oraclelinux 7

I just need any effing linux distro so I can test some storage code I'm developing.

Pick a VM and provide a VM log. Then we can sensibly comment on whether the configuration for that VM could be improved. With the VM fully shut down, right click and "Show Log" in the GUI, save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip, and attach the zip here.

Usually the user has made the mistake of throwing resources at the VM, forgetting that the host has to run the VirtualBox software. I.e. you need to reach a balance, not starve either host or guest.

And no, the various Linux distros have no favorites among them. They all tend to be based on the same kernel anyway, largely having only cosmetic differences.

While I am not the OP, I seem to encounter the same issue. Even on a high-powered MBP (6-core Intel i7 and 32 GB RAM), my Linux VMs are sluggish at best. (They seem to be much better without graphical desktop environments though.) I'll attach my log file just in case anybody wants to take a shot.

The very same VM copied to my desktop machine (ArchLinux on an AMD Ryzen 7-1700 with 32 GB RAM) works lightyears better (=faster).

Your configuration seems fine to me. The only thing of note is:

00:00:10.053551 AIOMgr: Host limits number of active IO requests to 16. Expect a performance impact.

I note also that this VM can't be very long established, since it is configured to use VMSVGA graphics.

Are you sure it isn't the graphics processes in Ubuntu that have changed, rather than VirtualBox?

00:00:01.882946 GUI: UIMachineLogicFullscreen::sltHandleNativeFullscreenWillEnter: Machine-window #0 will enter native fullscreen

Avoid taking the VM full-screen. You're on HiDPI and your VM has a fake GPU. Those pixels are not moving easily and they're a *lot* of them...

Hi Guys,

yes, it's true, this is a fresh VM and installation of Ubuntu 18.10. Is there anything that I can do to remove the IO limitation?

I noticed that reducing the desktop size by leaving fullscreen and resizing the window somewhat improves the behavior, still it just doesn't feel proper compared to the specs of the host machine. Again, the same VM on my desktop machine responds absolutely fluidly, and even on my older Windows notebook (Intel i7 6700 with Iris gfx and 16 GB of RAM) it works much better than on the MBP which should normally blow away the dual core i7, so my feeling persists that it is somehow related to Mac OS.

FWIW: I have also tried both X11 and Wayland under Ubuntu - to no avail.

Cheers,

Smoerre

Smoerreb r wrote:Is there anything that I can do to remove the IO limitation?

In order to get rid of it and improve the performance, go to the VM Settings » Storage » select the HD controller and enable the "Use Host I/O Cache".

Smoerreb r wrote:works much better than on the MBP which should normally blow away the ... <name the competition>

Yeah, it should, shouldn't it? But the HiDPI of your Mac has to move way more pixels around. Believe me if you'd gotten a cheaper, smaller Mac, the performance would be much better...

sineater wrote:Literally takes 5 seconds for a single character I type to appear.

OK, I'm reading linearly. That should *not* happen. Then you're right, something is horribly wrong here...

sineater wrote:200% cpu usage in the host OS. Some combinations of settings gets cpu usage down to 80%

As I said. Horribly wrong.

Can you change the VM resolution to 1280x1024? And then follow a complete cycle run (start/login/shutdown) and post an updated log. And the .vbox file for the VM (right-click on the VM, Show in Finder). ZIP them or else the forum won't accept the attachments