(Solved) Still can't get Ubuntu 11.04 to run correctly...

[loukingjr]

I'm at my wits end. I have tried to get Ubuntu 11.04 running as a guest since it was in alpha. I am currently running VB 4.0.10 and Mac OSX 10.6.8, I have installed it numerous times and am having the same issue from the alphas to the release version. Guest Additions are installed. When I start the guest in classic or classic (no effects), it looks fine for about 10 seconds but then the theme switched to some generic ugly theme. I can fix it by running "killall -9 gnome-settings-daemon && gnome-settings-daemon" but nautilus still has the generic theme until I run "killall nautilus && nautilus" which starts multiple copies of itself until I close the terminal.

Unity is another story. It also looks fine for some seconds till the top panel switches to a generic theme, although the icons may or may not draw. The left panel seems to draw okay except all the tool tips just draw as garbage when you mouse over the icons. If I run the above mention commands the top panel draws but there are no icons unless I click in the area they are suppose to be.

I have no idea what could be wrong or how others seem to be able to run Unity in VB. The irony is I made a live CD from the .iso and I can boot my Mac from it and Unity runs fine.

I had a couple thoughts and it's probably wrong but, I never un-install VB before updating it. Perhaps a setting from a previous build is screwing things up? Although I have 20+ other guests running just fine. I think it also could be one of the extensions I run but why would it only cause issues with Unity and Ubuntu?

I have Lubuntu 11.04, Linux Mint 11 and Peppermint 2, all 11.04 based and they run just fine. I also have Xubuntu 11.10 alpha and it's working also. I know Unity can run in VirtualBox because I've seen the screenshots. None were on a Mac host however.

any thoughts on what I could try? thanks

[Perryg]

The issue of the theme is a known Ubuntu issue. Setting the Ubuntu guest to auto-login should fix/work-around that. As for the Unity desktop I find that if you are having issues it usually turns out to be the video adapter on the host that is the problem. It could be just the drivers need to be updated to the latest version. For what it is worth this seems to also be the same for Ubuntu 11.10 even if you are running the latest VirtualBox builds from SVN.

[loukingjr]

The issue of the theme is a known Ubuntu issue. Setting the Ubuntu guest to auto-login should fix/work-around that. As for the Unity desktop I find that if you are having issues it usually turns out to be the video adapter on the host that is the problem. It could be just the drivers need to be updated to the latest version. For what it is worth this seems to also be the same for Ubuntu 11.10 even if you are running the latest VirtualBox builds from SVN.

thanks Perry. As far as the drivers, why would it run fine natively in metal? As I mentioned I can boot my Mac from a live CD and have none of the graphic issues. I will try auto-login.

edit: auto logging in seems to have fixed all my problems. at least in Unity 2d. I haven't tested the others yet...

a big thanks Perry

[Perryg]

As for why Unity on a live cd will work native but not in a guest is really unknown. I do know that I could run Fedora 15 and Ubuntu 11.04 from live boot but had difficulty as guest even though it looked like it should work. I and a lot of people that had this issue found that installing the latest host graphics drivers fixed this. Anyway just keep that in mind and it should not hurt to have the latest drivers for your graphics adapter.

[loukingjr]

As for why Unity on a live cd will work native but not in a guest is really unknown. I do know that I could run Fedora 15 and Ubuntu 11.04 from live boot but had difficulty as guest even though it looked like it should work. I and a lot of people that had this issue found that installing the latest host graphics drivers fixed this. Anyway just keep that in mind and it should not hurt to have the latest drivers for your graphics adapter.

thanks. Unfortunately iMac owners are at the mercy of Apple as far as driver updates, the come along with their firmware updates. I am due for a new Mac soon anyway.

[loukingjr]

as it turns out Unity 3D still doesn't work all that well. Unity 2d and classic with or without effects work fine.