VirtualBox guest shows partial screen

[j1mw3b]

I have OpenSuSe 11.1 with VirtualBox-2.2.2_46594 installed.
I installed Centos 5.3 as a guest.

My native SuSe screen resolution is 1280x1024 - although I could go higher, and I only can select a max of 1024x768 resolution. The 1024x768 is actually enough except the way it is working is the screen is actually about 640x480 or so and moving the mouse to the edge of the screen moves it around.
It's like I have a 640x480 portal window that I can move around the underlying 1024x768 screen. Make sense?

Anyway, I have installed the guest additions more than once and tweaked every setting I can find - none have any effect.

Has anyone seen this behavior and if so, how do I solve it?

Thanks,

Jim

[Perryg]

Maybe you can explain what it looks like a little better. Are you saying that you have a VM window that you can move around? Have you tried clicking on the machine tab and making sure that auto-resize is active? What happens if you do (HOST + F)?

[j1mw3b]

Auto-resize is clicked in the machine tab.
Think of it as having a 1024x768 screen. And you have a 640x480 (or maybe a 800x600) rectangle on that screen. You can move that 640x480 rectangle around so you can see parts of the 1024x768 screen, but you cannot see all of it - only the part that is covered by the smaller rectangle. Moves very slowly.

Clicking full-screen mode (host-f) merely turns the borders outside of the 1024x768 black. Nothing else changes.

I verified that vboxadd and also vboxadd-timesync started ok during boot.
I increased the video memory to 24mb and even tried enabling 3d graphics. No effects.

Oh. Wait. I just changed the screen resolution down to 640x480, then to 800x600, then to 1024x768 and now it seems to have taken effect.

Now to see if it retains this over reboot and logout.

Next to try to get it to find the eth device and activate during startup.

Thanks,

Jim

[j1mw3b]

Doesn't retain settings over a logout or a reboot. In order to get it to go to 1024x768, have to first set to 800x600, and then back to 1024x768.

Weird behavior, but seems there seem to be many issues with display settings and behavior...
VirtualBox not ready for primetime I guess.

Bridged networking doesn't work too well either.

Thanks

Jim

[Perryg]

I think that you may be misunderstanding how the VBox auto-resize works. If you have standard sizes (modes) specified in the xorg.conf the auto-resize will not work and you should have gotten a message stating this when you installed the guest additions. Also if you use the guest screen resolution to change the size it will negate the auto-resize of VBox. The suggested way to get this working is to comment all screen modes out and any preferred mode that may be specified in the xorg.conf. Then reinstall the guest additions and use the mouse to drag the screen to the size you want. Then you can use the host+f for full screen or the host+l for seamless.

Please read: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 669#p33941

[j1mw3b]

Actually, before you posted your last re xorg.conf, I had already edited that file. For some reason 1024x768 was not a choice for "Screem0". Once I added that, it seems OK now.
ctrl-f (full-screen) only removes everything else from my screen and leaves the 1024x768 guest screen in the middle.
ctrl-l (seamless) wreaks total havoc on my display - screwing up the host OpenSuSe screen and the only recovery for the guest is to reboot it.

I did what your suggested - commented out "Screen" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and reinstalled Guest Additions, which made no changes to xorg.conf.
I am still getting 1024x768 resolution, which, BTW, is fine.

ctrl-F fullscreen behaves no differently.
ctrl-L is the same - havoc.

I also changed the network type from the apparent default PCnet-PCi III to the Intel 82540EM and now bridged networking seems to work much better. It now starts up during boot.

So, it is now good enuf for me.

Thanks much for help and suggestions,

Thanks,

Jim

[Sasquatch]

Did you check my Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions + Xorg config?