Wayland Support of VirtualBox Host Software?

[adrelanos]

Is the VirtualBox host software compatible with Wayland?

Can anyone confirm running a Linux based host operating system with Wayland and the VirtualBox host software successfully running on top of it?

If it is working, how well is it working with scaling, auto-resizing, copy and paste support, speed, glitches, 3D? Can watch a YouTube video?

Does the VirtualBox host software have native Wayland support or does it (reliably) use "workarounds" such as Xwayland?

There are a few tickets indicating "no" or some issues but hard to interpret, could be corner case issues only and looks largely outdated.

https://www.virtualbox.org/query?descri ... r=priority

If there's no Wayland support yet, which ticket is the Wayland Support of VirtualBox Host Software feature request ticket?

[mpack]

VirtualBox should be fine on Wayland hosts. After all VirtualBox barely gives two hoots about the host - Qt covers up all that.

What VirtualBox does sometimes have problems with is graphics drivers and GUI widgets (clipboard) on Wayland guests.

[marmel]

I recently switched my host from X11 to Wayland.

Virtualbox is the only remaining piece of software I use that does not support Wayland natively, running in XWayland rather.

When attempting to launch VB in native Wayland mode via virtualBox -platform wayland, it immediately segfaults and dumps core:

Code: Select all

Stack trace of thread 216476:
                    #0  0x00007f1d986ea4ef XInternAtom (libX11.so.6 + 0x2d4ef)
                    #1  0x00007f1d99120ead n/a (UICommon.so + 0x520ead)
                    #2  0x00007f1d98eece2e _ZN8UICommon7prepareEv (UICommon.so + 0x2ece2e)
                    #3  0x0000563eef0cc174 n/a (VirtualBox + 0xac174)
                    #4  0x0000563eef0c79d7 n/a (VirtualBox + 0xa79d7)
                    #5  0x00007f1d96a45cd0 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x27cd0)
                    #6  0x00007f1d96a45d8a __libc_start_main (libc.so.6 + 0x27d8a)
                    #7  0x0000563eef0cb5d5 n/a (VirtualBox + 0xab5d5)

I provided a full gdb backtrace here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18679

As best I can find, this is the only open ticket specific to host Wayland support, and it's scarily inactive given Wayland's uptake and prevalence as the default display protocol on most major Linux distros within the past few years.

[multiOS]

Virtualbox is the only remaining piece of software I use that does not support Wayland natively, running in XWayland rather.

From your input to the Forum, you are obviously experienced and skilled Linux user, however, there must be some doubts about your above statement given the 'official' guidance on Wayland and in their words

Being able to run existing X11 applications is crucial for the adoption of Wayland, especially on desktops, as there will always be X11 applications that have not been or cannot be converted into Wayland applications, and throwing them all away would be prohibitive.

https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch05.html

As more of a 'casual user' of Linux Distros I do not know the specifics of how this impacts on the construct the VirtualBox application compiled for Linux Systems, but it seems clear that Linux Distros will need the presence of Xwayland for many years, unless they wish to deny their users the ability to use a wide range of software.

[marmel]

Virtualbox is the only remaining piece of software I use that does not support Wayland natively, running in XWayland rather.

There must be some doubts about your above statement given the 'official' guidance on Wayland and in their words

Not sure why you chose the word 'doubt'. I have no doubt that my only installed application that does not run natively on Wayland is Virtualbox. I dragged my feet for many years before easily and confidently switching to a now-mature Wayland just recently.

Being able to run existing X11 applications is crucial for the adoption of Wayland, especially on desktops, as there will always be X11 applications that have not been or cannot be converted into Wayland applications, and throwing them all away would be prohibitive.

This adoption of Wayland has been ongoing for 15 years. I also have no doubt that X11 and XWayland will need to be around for decades longer to support legacy graphical applications. I'm not knocking either systems. X11 had a good ~40 year run!

As more of a 'casual user' of Linux Distros I do not know the specifics of how this impacts on the construct the VirtualBox application compiled for Linux Systems, but it seems clear that Linux Distros will need the presence of Xwayland for many years, unless they wish to deny their users the ability to use a wide range of software.

It's not so much distros, as it is DE's and WM's. Using modern tools such as the reporter of the bug ticket I linked ( #18679 ) allow the possibility to have a system free of any Xorg dependencies, including Xwayland, as it is not a dependency of Wayland.

See these two recent MRs in gnome-session for perspective:

• https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-se ... equests/98

• https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-se ... equests/99

When gnome lands these changes in the not so distant future release, I'll need to chose between my desktop environment or Virtualbox. You can bet I'll switch to qemu/boxes for virtualization if VB still does not run natively under Wayland at that time. Just trying to get ahead of that by providing feedback. Hopefully VB devs beat the countdown clock.

[marmel]

The same crash, and resulting coredump, occurs with Virtualbox 7.0.12.

I'll update ticket #18679, and this thread, after testing each subsequent release.

[FranceBB]

I recently switched my host from X11 to Wayland.
Virtualbox is the only remaining piece of software I use that does not support Wayland natively, running in XWayland rather.

Lucky. I still have other programs depending on X11 aside from Virtualbox, so I'll stick to Xorg for a little bit longer.

This adoption of Wayland has been ongoing for 15 years. I also have no doubt that X11 and XWayland will need to be around for decades longer to support legacy graphical applications. I'm not knocking either systems. X11 had a good ~40 year run!

In recent news, it looks like GNOME is getting ready to ditch X11 support by 2025.
I know that the X11 to Wayland transition has been going on for a very long time, but I think ditching X11 is a step too much and it's the wrong decision.
Still, if they're gonna go ahead with it, I'll have to move to Wayland too and, by then, hopefully all the programs I use will have native support for Wayland, including Virtualbox.

[marmel]

I experienced some serious Win11 guest UI flashing and graphical artifacts last week with Virtualbox 7.0.12 on Xwayland, even with 3D Accel disabled. It disrupted my workflow extensively.

So, on a rainy Saturday this past weekend, I went all-in on a pure Wayland shell, devoid of Xwayland (gnome-shell --no-X11).

I migrated my .vdi disks to .qcow2 and set up new VMs within libvirt, using qemu and kvm.

Some former deal-breaker prerequisites (a minimum of functional parity with VB) for me to migrate previously...

• 4k native guest resolution via QXL

• Multiple shared folders via virtiofs without needing SMB on host or WebDAV on guest

• Honor host suspend/resume

...are now working flawlessly on this stack in 2023. It's blazing fast and rock-solid.

It is with a touch of sadness that I have uninstalled Virtualbox after more than a decade of regular use, both personally and professionally.

But... I'll be back approx ~quarterly to install and test it natively on Wayland. See ya @ 7.0.14! Cheers!

[FranceBB]

Please note that there are unfortunately plans for Fedora 40 to remove xorg support entirely (although it's still being discussed). I won't post the link as it might be considered spam, but if you google search "#395 Evaluate our X11 session offering" followed by "Fedora" you're gonna find the whole discussion.
Needless to say I'm totally opposed to that decision and I really hope they're gonna go back on their steps and not actually do it, especially 'cause Virtualbox is always using X11 by default even on Wayland, so much so that on the logs when you start any virtual machine at the very beginning (within the first 50 lines let's say) you're gonna see entries like:

Code: Select all

00:00:00.922155 GUI: Qt version: 6.3.0
00:00:00.922164 GUI: X11 Window Manager code: 2

and

Code: Select all

00:00:01.029888 X Server details: vendor: The X.Org Foundation, release: 12302002, protocol version: 11.0, display string: :0

As things stand, Fedora 40 isn't gonna be released until April 2024 (and even that can be subject to delays) and the current Rawhide builds still have x11 (xorg) support, however there are so many issues and bugs when the x11 session is selected that I think nobody is really working on that and that they're just getting ready to remove it. If that's the case, then this is gonna be a pretty big problem 'cause it might break lots of different programs among which is Virtualbox.

[dciarnie]

I am not looking forward to Fedora 40 because of the X11 removal. While I can use VirtualBox under Wayland, I cannot use it in full screen mode as the mouse is unusable. Keyboard works fine but not the mouse.

[toxicdiver4]

@marmel
in order to spare you from the very same missery , hereby
I am confirming that issues persist on VB 7.0.14r161095

(next one is yours, I am not returning to VB ever
or to Oracle, cases are virtually (haha) untouched, even trivial bugs unattended for years)

for moderator :
(I know, that this post will most probably not be published, but please, publish at least my second version,
so college marmel or others are not wasting their precious time on the same
thank you in advanced)

Cheers

[toxicdiver4]

@marmel
I can confirm that issue persist in VB 7.0.14r161095
Cheers

[klaus]

VirtualBox 7.0.x will work only with Xwayland. It's too much effort to change it for the code based on Qt 5.

For the dev version (7.0.97) we hopefully find enough time to get rid of all X11isms - it should be already better but there's quite a bit of testing still to do.

[FranceBB]

Thank you Klaus for addressing this. It's something I deeply care about.
I'm currently running 7.0.97 r162578 which is the latest development snapshot which is using Qt 6.3.0 on X11.
Fedora 40 managed to dodge the bullet after a widespread community uprising and still has X11 and is due to be released in just a week or so. It will be supported up until the 13th of May 2025.
Unfortunately however starting from Fedora 41, the OS will ship with Wayland only and will drop X11 support entirely as it's gonna ship with GNOME 47. This means that it will inevitably go all the way down to CentOS Stream and then RHEL as time passes.


Please update this topic back when native Wayland support is gonna be introduced.
I'm very happy to test it once it's ready and available in the development snapshots!

[klaus]

If Fedora 41 completely drops X11 support that's their (in my personal opinion very misguided and short sighted) decision. They're effectively deciding that the entire X11 dependent code base is worthless.

Pointing at GNOME 47 isn't really truthful, because the GNOME project is just aiming at being able to work without Xwayland. Not about enforcing pure Wayland mode of operation.

Enforcing pure Wayland setups would be the decision of fundamentalists, and not of the GNOME project.