Ubuntu 10.04 guest, Max res 800x600 - GA prob?

[flamacue]

Hi all,

I have installed Guest Additions several times, and judging by the console output, it appears to succeed AFAIK, but I am still unable to Enter Seamless Mode (the option is greyed-out), and I am unable to resize the display to anything other than 800x600 or 640x480. I would appreciate any help on this.

I'm running VirtualBox 3.2.6 r63112, with Win7 Pro 64-bit as the host, on a Lenovo Thinkpad x201 notebook. The guest is Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, amd64.

Note, first I set this up as a dual-boot system (Win7 and Ubuntu). With Ubuntu 10.04 booted natively, I installed the OS updates. I setup the vmdk (with access to the /boot and / partitions only), booted into Windows, opened VirtualBox, and booted the Ubuntu install virtually. (I had trouble making a bootable grub .iso, so for now I just boot it from the grub2 install on /boot, and I'm careful to only choose the Ubuntu option.)

I then tried a few times to install the Guest Additions (GA). I didn't realize at first that I needed to install linux-headers-generic (maybe that was already there?), build-essential, and DKMS before GA, so it was after a few attempts at installing GA that I installed those. I tried installing GA again, with the same result (shown below).

Guest Additions installation results - appears successful?

Screenshot_VBox_GA_inst.png (18.2 KiB) Viewed 4895 times

Also, I think the kernel header versions match...but the fourth and last number varies, when it's shown at all...? See here:

Kernel version

Screenshot_synaptic_vs_uname.png (119.96 KiB) Viewed 4903 times

Can someone help me get GA working so I can Enter Seamless Mode, and have the Guest Display Auto-resize?

Thanks in advance.

[Perryg]

Are you trying to run this as a RAW disk? physical to virtual?

[flamacue]

Are you trying to run this as a RAW disk? physical to virtual?

Yes.

As I mentioned, I can boot this same Ubuntu installation natively. That means I must be using a raw disk, right? (Just making sure I have my terms right.)

[Perryg]

OK you did read Chapter 9.7. Advanced storage configuration in your VirtualBox users manual right? Especially the warnings?
My problem is I don't know what will happen if you install the guest additions and try to run this native again. Something to consider though.
If it were me I would simply install Ubuntu as a guest OS and be done with it, but that is your call.

[flamacue]

OK you did read Chapter 9.7. Advanced storage configuration in your VirtualBox users manual right?

Yes. (Link added above.)

I set it up as described in the section titled, "Access to individual physical hard disk partitions".

Especially the warnings?

I see one warning:

Warning

Raw hard disk access is for expert users only. Incorrect use or use of an outdated configuration can lead to total loss of data on the physical disk. Most importantly, do not attempt to boot the partition with the currently running host operating system in a guest. This will lead to severe data corruption.

I don't see what this has to do with my setup, although, to be fair, I'm not sure what "configuration" it's referring to.

I'm not booting from a partition with the currently running host OS. I have Win7 (host OS) on /dev/sda2. Grub2 is my bootloader, which resides on /dev/sda6. Ubuntu root is on /dev/sda7, and swap is on /dev/sda5. I setup the vmdk file to only be able to see /dev/sda5, /dev/sda6, and /dev/sda7.

However, out of a handful of reboots of the Host OS (Win7), it did a disk check for consistency once. I don't know if this is related.

My problem is I don't know what will happen if you install the guest additions and try to run this native again. Something to consider though.

I don't see anything in the Warning above that speaks to this. Did I miss it, or is there something else that makes you think this might be a problem?

If it were me I would simply install Ubuntu as a guest OS and be done with it, but that is your call.

Thanks for the suggestion. I would prefer the flexibility of my dual-/multi-boot approach, but I may wind up having to take your advice if it doesn't work out...

...You know, I have the reverse on my (now) old laptop. I have a WinXP installation that I can boot either natively, or virtually in VBox on Ubuntu. It was very difficult to setup, between a GA vs. native mouse/trackpad driver conflict, and making the real and virtual hardware setups similar enough so as to not trip product activation... It worked well for several months, but then the network stopped working. I never did figure out how to fix it...

[flamacue]

*bump*

Can someone help me get GA working so I can Enter Seamless Mode, and have the Guest Display Auto-resize?

Can anyone help with this?

[Perryg]

OK My problem is I have no idea what will happen to the native boot of Ubuntu if you install the guest additions, but be that as it may follow this guide

Start the guest and make sure that linux-headers-generic, build essential, and dkms is installed.
It would not hurt to run apt-get install update then apt-get upgrade and reboot the guest.
Then try to install the guest additions.

sudo dpkg -l linux-headers* will list the installed headers and uname -r will tell you the kernel you are using.
If you installed the linux-headers-generic then they should be in sync and after you install dkms they will stay in sync

But I must say proceed at your own risk here because as I said I do not know what this will do to the native install if and when you try to use it.

[Mun206]

OK, I just tried Perryg's idea.

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 and used sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get upgrade.

Then I installed GA, got exactly the same output as OP.

Rebooted VM and voila - it worked! Now enjoying resizable window incl. full screen. Haven't tried seamless mode yet.

edit: no updates for linux-headers-generic or whatever were installed, even though there is a latest installable version.

[flamacue]

OK My problem is I have no idea what will happen to the native boot of Ubuntu if you install the guest additions, but be that as it may follow this guide

Start the guest and make sure that linux-headers-generic, build essential, and dkms is installed.
It would not hurt to run apt-get install update then apt-get upgrade and reboot the guest.
Then try to install the guest additions.

sudo dpkg -l linux-headers* will list the installed headers and uname -r will tell you the kernel you are using.
If you installed the linux-headers-generic then they should be in sync and after you install dkms they will stay in sync

Perryg, thanks for trying again.

What you wrote here appears to be exactly what I've already done. Nonetheless, I tried it...and results are the same as before, i.e. "Enter Seamless Mode" and "Disable Guest Display Auto-resize" are both still greyed-out.

But I must say proceed at your own risk here because as I said I do not know what this will do to the native install if and when you try to use it.

Thanks for the warning. It's no problem, it's a fresh install; I have no personal data on it.

[flamacue]

OK, I just tried Perryg's idea.

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 and used sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get upgrade.

Then I installed GA, got exactly the same output as OP.

Rebooted VM and voila - it worked! Now enjoying resizable window incl. full screen. Haven't tried seamless mode yet.

edit: no updates for linux-headers-generic or whatever were installed, even though there is a latest installable version.

Mun206, do you have the same setup as me? 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04, installed natively, then having created a .vmdk, booted virtually in VBox...

@Anyone: do you think it would make a difference if I started over (fresh native install), and made sure to install/update linux-headers-generic, build-essential, and dkms before the first attempt at installing GA?

[Sasquatch]

Should not matter, but it's possible that due to this set up, you're not booting the proper kernel or something. The build goes fine, but somehow it's either not saved, or it's installed for a different kernel. Update and then see what happens. Instead of doing a clean reinstall, reboot to the system natively, update from there and see if things improve. You can copy the GA installer file to your desktop or something so you can access it from outside a virtual environment.

[flamacue]

Update and then see what happens.

I'm already totally up-to-date.

Instead of doing a clean reinstall, reboot to the system natively, update from there and see if things improve. You can copy the GA installer file to your desktop or something so you can access it from outside a virtual environment.

Tried--no luck.

I was just prepping to do a clean install...maybe from within the VM...and remembered that when I booted the install CD, and chose the Install option, I added some options in the boot line--namely "xforcevesa i915.modeset=0". Could this be what's messing things up?

I got the boot params from this thread:
ubuntu refuses to install on thinkpad X201

[Perryg]

Do you by chance have a file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf? if you do post it here.
Normally Ubuntu 10.04 does not need this file but some special installs do create it and if it did and has the wrong information that would keep the auto resize and what not from working properly.

[flamacue]

xorg.conf:

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver		"vesa"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

I see I also have 0-byte file named "xorg.conf.failsafe" in the same directory, with a timestamp about a half hour later than xorg.conf. I don't recall if I edited this or not...maybe when I ran some updates and was prompted about cfg file changes?

[Perryg]

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
   Identifier   "Configured Video Device"
   Driver      "vboxvideo"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier   "Default Screen"
   Monitor      "Configured Monitor"
   Device      "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

I have edited the file and you can see that I replaced the vesa with vboxvideo.
If this does not work then copy the file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bkup and delete the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
Each time you edit this file or replace it you will need to log out and back in for the changes to take effect.

Keep in mind that if the native install needs vesa to work you would need to put it back and of course auto resize and the other screen features will not work.