Can't start X in gentoo guest

[mankiko]

Running a gentoo host and trying to setup a new VM with gentoo as a guest (I currently have a windows guest working successfully on this host).

I can boot into guest ok and installed the VBox guest addons. However when I try to startx, a black screen launches and resizes but the window manager never appears (I've tried the default and fluxbox). I just get the black screen and no mouse.

Last few lines of /var/log/Xorg.0.log are

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(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (15)
(II) config/hal: Adding input device VirtualBox Guest Service
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: always reports core events
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: Device: "/dev/vboxguest"
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "VirtualBox Guest Service" (type: MOUSE)
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: (accel) keeping acceleration scheme 1
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: (accel) acceleration profile 0
(II) VirtualBox Guest Service: On.

Backtrace:

but there's nothing listed below the Backtrace statement.

Any suggestions as to how to debug/troubleshoot would be greatly appreciated. I'm using VBox 3.2.6

[Perryg]

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Virtualbox_Guest

[mankiko]

Ok I followed all the instructions on that page including recompiling my kernel, adjusting the make.conf entries, and did a re-install of the addon modules. Still having the same problem, the logs look a little different but the end is still the same.

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(II) config/hal: Adding input device VirtualBox Guest Service
(II) LoadModule: "vboxmouse"
(II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/input/vboxmouse_drv.so
(II) Module vboxmouse: vendor="Oracle Corporation"
        compiled for 0.0.0, module version = 1.0.0
        Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
        ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 7.0
(**) Load address of symbol "VBOXMOUSE" is 0x7f633f8b64c0
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: always reports core events
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: Device: "/dev/vboxguest"
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "VirtualBox Guest Service" (type: MOUSE)
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: (accel) keeping acceleration scheme 
(**) VirtualBox Guest Service: (accel) acceleration profile 0
(II) VirtualBox Guest Service: On.

Backtrace:

[Sasquatch]

Then the first thing I would do, is get X working without the GA. Uninstall them, reboot and see if you can startx now. If you can't, then you know where the issue is: the OS configuration, you made a mistake somewhere. If you can get to X, then you need to lay out each step in getting your X working properly. First thing I would do, is just try to run X by issuing the 'X' command.

[mankiko]

Ok, so from information in the forums I uninstalled the guest additions and rebooted. However when I run X it fails. From the log (below) it's appears that it's still looking for vbox modules. I don't have a Xorg.conf file defined so I suppose hal is trying to use vbox modules? But I don't understand why.
Maybe I need a generic Xorg.conf to start with?

Thanks for your help
Dave

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(II) Loading extension DRI2
(II) LoadModule: "vboxvideo"
(II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so
dlopen: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so
(II) UnloadModule: "vboxvideo"
(EE) Failed to load module "vboxvideo" (loader failed, 7)
(II) LoadModule: "vesa"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module vesa
(II) UnloadModule: "vesa"
(EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module fbdev
(II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"
(EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

[Sasquatch]

You need to have at least a couple of fallback modules to give X a driver to display anything. It appears it is indeed looking for vboxvideo and that no longer exists, correct. But, as you can see, it's also trying to look for vesa and fbdev. Those two, especially vesa, should be installed so you can have a basic X display (low res most of the time, but can be extended, it's slow though).

[mankiko]

Alright, now I'm just confused. I re-compiled my kernel with the vesa driver built in but I can't find the option for fbdev (I see xen fbdev but I can't modprobe that). Anyway, with the vesa driver installed I'm still getting the same errors listed above. I've done this twice to ensure I'm installing the new kernel. I've read a couple of how-tos and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Welcome to any suggestion.
You wouldn't know it from this thread, but I've actually been using linux for many years

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FB_VESA [=y] 
XEN_FBDEV_FRONTEND [=m]

[Sasquatch]

All I know is that VESA isn't something you build into the kernel to get X working. To get VESA working with X, you need the X version of VESA. Two different things. Are you sure you followed the X howto's on the Gentoo site?