Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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_Josue_
Posts: 6
Joined: 8. Jun 2017, 07:44

Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by _Josue_ »

mpack wrote:The above topic is already marked by the OP as solved. Locking it.

If you have a similar problem (it can't be the same problem otherwise the above would solve it for you too), then open a new topic and provide minimum info as mentioned above.
Sorry to bring this again (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=79486). But I have no choice. I have the same problem. *cough* can't post urls? not even link to a thread here in the forums? *cough*

I just installed Linux Mint Mate 18.1 on VirtualBox-5.1.22-115126-Win (and Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.22-115126). After installing it, Cairo dock worked in OpenGl mode (not without some warnings) but after installing the Cinnamon desktop, it ran in software rendering mode.
I have enabled 3D acceleration in VirtualBox and assigned 128MB of graphics memory.
Me too, I had all that jazz correctly setup.
Solution
Uninstall Guest Additions that are packaged with the guest
Reboot, then install the Guest Additions provided with VirtualBox by clicking Devices > Insert Guest Additions CD Image...
Navigate to the mounted image in a terminal and run VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
So I followed the steps in the aforementioned thread, to no avail. Actually it made things worse since Cinnamon now only renders a black screen and Cairo Dock (on mate) does the same! (the whole cairo dock bar is a black thing on the screen)
Last edited by socratis on 8. Jun 2017, 10:43, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed obfuscated URLs.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by Perryg »

Post the guests log file ( as an attachment ). Right click on the guest in the Main Manager then click show log. Save and post as an attachment. Compress if it is too large to post.

Also the guest /var/log/vboxadd-install.log ( as an attachment )
_Josue_
Posts: 6
Joined: 8. Jun 2017, 07:44

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by _Josue_ »

Perryg wrote:Post the guests log file ( as an attachment ). Right click on the guest in the Main Manager then click show log. Save and post as an attachment. Compress if it is too large to post.

Also the guest /var/log/vboxadd-install.log ( as an attachment )
"The file is too big, maximum allowed size is 128 KiB."
Err... uh... uhm... just 128Kib?
/var/log/vboxadd-install.log is only 251 kb and the other one is 194kb. just a bit heavier, but ...

oh well, I see why you adviced me to compress.
Compressing them with the best compression is actually enough.

here they go both logs:
MintXp-2017-06-07-22-45-57.rar
Logs
(30.08 KiB) Downloaded 236 times
Thanks a lot for the quick reply!
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by Perryg »

Code: Select all

OpenGL Info: Render SPU: GL_RENDERER: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600

OpenGL Warning: crServerMuralFBOIdxFromBufferName: invalid buffer passed 0x8ce0
It looks like the host GPU and/or driver is having issues. I would make sure that you have an updated driver and try again. Also if this is a laptop with dual GPU cards make sure you are using the one with high graphics for the guest. It might be necessary to start with a new guest if this one is corrupt.
_Josue_
Posts: 6
Joined: 8. Jun 2017, 07:44

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by _Josue_ »

A driver issue? I can't believe it! Specially since I can play games normally with this machine. I really don't want to mess with the drivers, unless...
Is there any way to make virtualbox use the Nvidia card instead? I'll take a look tomorrow and I will redo my virtual machine testing.


EDIT.

OK. Tested with Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.3 and it runs well, the "software rendering" message doesn't show up. (I think that definitely discards a driver issue.) However Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1 and 18.2 do show the message. I have reported it in the linux mint forums since this seems to be a problem with newer versions implementation of their virtual box drivers.
However there's still the issue that happens after installing the guest additions from the CD making everything work worse.
Last edited by socratis on 10. Jun 2017, 11:43, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed unnecessary verbatim quote of the whole previous message.
_Josue_
Posts: 6
Joined: 8. Jun 2017, 07:44

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by _Josue_ »

Posting an update:
I have made several experiments, including installing LInux Mint Mate 18.2 on real hardware and installing the cinnamon desktop on top of it. Certainly, cinnamon doesn't run in software rendering mode on real hardware. It runs pretty much well excepting some little problems that have nothing to do with this.
Here's the list of things I have tried:

For the sake of doing a better test I started again from scratch.
I made more tests:



This time using Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1
Live session ran with the "fall back to software rendering mode" error message.
As expected, after installing the virtual machine it was still like that.

ran

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-guest-utils
The three packages were removed.
Rebooted.
Surprise! resolution is still high!
I went to the devices menu and selected "Insert Guest Additions CD image"
The cd prompted to be executed. Ignored. went to the terminal and executed sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Code: Select all

You appear to have a version of the VBoxGuestAdditions software on your system which was installed from a different source or using a different type of installer
dumb message since after checking at synaptics package manager everything was uninstalled.
Really, this message happens in all cases! There should be something left for the installer to detect it.

Code: Select all

Do you wish to continue anyway? [yes or no]
typed Y and pressed enter.

everything seemed fine.

Code: Select all

vboxadd.sh Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions
Reboot.



Everything seems fine, no errors.

So, now let's do the same with Linux Mint Mate again from scratch.

I did things the other way around: made a 17.3 Cinnamon machine and installed mate on top.
after installing the virtual machine clicked on the updates button in the panel.
began updating everything.
Finished updating. Restart.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-guest-utils
The three packages were removed.
Rebooted.

Installed the Guest additions from CD.

Result? Everything is running fine! I can switch desktops without trouble!
However everything changed when on top of that I installed Cairo-dock.
Cinnamon doesn't get the rendering mode error but Cairo Dock renders black!
The whole dock is a black thing!

Here's a screenshot:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... h3aFpXejBn

Who knows if this works fine with former versions of VirtualBox, All I know is that it fais with
VirtualBox-5.1.22-115126.

Clearly the guest additions have bugs that only appear in certain conditions, for example when you install another desktop environment.
However, I think my tests show that it's possible to have both Cinnamon and Mate together without much hiccups.

Now it seems you just released a new virtualbox version... I don't know when I will have time to retry this test.
Trition
Posts: 1
Joined: 15. Nov 2017, 06:28

Re: Mint / Cinnamon running in software rendering mode (Again)

Post by Trition »

I am facing the same issue that you posted here. Pretty new to Linux + VM.
QQ:
Does my system Graphics Card affect Virtual graphics card anyway?

I tried with two OS ISO's Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.2 "Sonya" and 17.3 "Rosa".

For both conditions these are the concurrent steps and observations
1. Mounted OS on VM and ran the OS
2. Post installation Got "Software rendering mode issue"
3. Further reading suggested enabling 3D rendering + uninstalling some addins and then reinstalling addins from devices as you mentioned above
4. Got the black screen of death as they say.
5. Went ahead and downloaded Linux Mint Mate 17.3 but have not proceeded with the installation yet.

QQ2: What should I do next?
QQ3: I am pretty new to this so steps will help.

Thanks for your patient read.
Last edited by socratis on 21. Nov 2017, 20:00, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed unnecessary verbatim quote of the whole previous message.
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