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

[flamacue]

Progress...

Perryg, the change to xorg.conf that you suggested did fix the issue from within the VM. Of course, it totally breaks X when I boot natively...

I did some quick googling, and noted that it's possible to have two entries for Devices in xorg.conf. I tried having both, but it only worked correctly in VBox when its device was the only one in the file.

Also, I now have a new issue that when I choose Shutdown from within Ubuntu booted virtually, VBox crashes on me.

So, my issues are now two:
1.) How do I fix the crash on Shutdown?
2.) How can I make it work for either configuration automatically? e.g. By telling X / xorg.conf about both displays (the native and the virtual) and having it select the right one... or by somehow modifying xorg.conf based on what h/w I booted... or...?

That's all I can do for now. I'll post the details of the crash later.

Thanks so much for your help so far, guys!

[Perryg]

I was afraid of that from the beginning. Especially after you said that you had to do special things to get it to work native. I know of no way to fix this given your situation of Ubuntu native on your PC. I still think the best thing for you to do is run Ubuntu as a VM.

[Mun206]

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...

Ah, sorry - I missed that. No, I'm using the 32 bit version and I installed it in VirtualBox.

Oh, and I don't think you'll get very far with xorg.conf - I had a similar problem to this before and it didn't help much.

[Sasquatch]

Flamacue, as stated earlier in this topic, Ubuntu 10.04 shouldn't need an xorg.conf. Can you try to boot both ways without one? When in VB, it should load the vboxvideo module and on native boot, it should load VESA. Or if you have the driver installed for your video card itself, it should load that one (open source driver only, like intel, ati or nv).

[flamacue]

Also, I now have a new issue that when I choose Shutdown from within Ubuntu booted virtually, VBox crashes on me.
...
1.) How do I fix the crash on Shutdown?

Here is the error message window:

When I choose Shutdown from within Ubuntu booted virtually...

VB_AppCrash.png (43.33 KiB) Viewed 2811 times

And here is the full text:

Code: Select all

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH
  Application Name:	VirtualBox.exe
  Application Version:	3.2.6.0
  Application Timestamp:	4c24b014
  Fault Module Name:	ig4icd64.dll
  Fault Module Version:	8.15.10.2025
  Fault Module Timestamp:	4b2bd484
  Exception Code:	c0000005
  Exception Offset:	000000000003fa08
  OS Version:	6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Information 1:	cb8f
  Additional Information 2:	cb8f387930809d1e06a85befbca14651
  Additional Information 3:	115a
  Additional Information 4:	115a391510c133665452e938927458b8

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2.) How can I make it work for either configuration automatically? e.g. By telling X / xorg.conf about both displays (the native and the virtual) and having it select the right one... or by somehow modifying xorg.conf based on what h/w I booted... or...?

Flamacue, as stated earlier in this topic, Ubuntu 10.04 shouldn't need an xorg.conf. Can you try to boot both ways without one? When in VB, it should load the vboxvideo module and on native boot, it should load VESA. Or if you have the driver installed for your video card itself, it should load that one (open source driver only, like intel, ati or nv).

Booting virtually is fine without xorg.conf, but booting natively gives me no X. I figure this is probably why others were saying I needed to force those options at installation time...

Why don't the closed source drivers work for this?

I did some quick googling, and noted that it's possible to have two entries for Devices in xorg.conf. I tried having both, but it only worked correctly in VBox when its device was the only one in the file.

This seems to me like it would be the cleanest solution, if anyone knows how to get it to work...

Runner up would be somehow modifying xorg.conf based on how I boot. I can almost think of some clever ways to hack it...

I was afraid of that from the beginning. Especially after you said that you had to do special things to get it to work native. I know of no way to fix this given your situation of Ubuntu native on your PC. I still think the best thing for you to do is run Ubuntu as a VM.

Noted.

[Sasquatch]

Why don't the closed source drivers work for this?

Because it's not a native module to xorg. I don't know the exact works, but it seems that either the native names are hardcoded in the check, or the native modules are signed in some way. Either way, closed source drivers must be specified. VB had this issue too until they changed the behaviour of the module a while back (don't know which version it was, or if xorg fixed it for/with them).
The error of not getting X when booting native can always be found in /var/log/xorg.0.log.

[flamacue]

Thanks to all for your help on this. Unfortunately I haven't gotten things working nicely yet. I think I am going to give up on the multi-environment booting for now.

I'm giving up because
(1) the crash-on-vm-shutdown issue takes priority (I may post another thread),
(2) Windows (host OS) is often running a chkdsk on bootup, and I suspect that has something to do with how VBox accesses the rawdisk, and
(3) the xorg.conf / hw issue is not easily solved or worked-around.