virtualbox.org

Well, I think I have tried 8 different distros that use Cinnamon as a DE and everyone of them crashes (aborts) on a Mac host. I would post a ticket but I don't want to have to post 8 different logs. Cinnamon works fine in 2D.

At this point AFAIK Mint would be the only distro that you could consider as anywhere compatible with cinnamon. I have a Mint guest that runs 24/7 and only gets rebooted when a kernel update comes through. I also have Fedora, Ubuntu, and Debian guests and while I don't seem to have a lot of issues I occasionally need to use the host+backspace or host+delete key to force a logout (wsod). That said I don't need to that often these days. It used to be a lot worse.

Also keep in mind that the version of the distro means a lot. The newer it is the more likely cinnamon has not caught up to the new Xorg, or Gnome.

well, among others I have tried Linux Mint 13 - 15 RC plus LMDE and they all crash as well. I just think it's a Mac host problem.

Possibly, but it could also be an issue with the hosts graphics adapter. I just remedied an issue with 3D and the problem was an nVidia issue with the next release of VirtualBox.
IIRC Mac does not update its graphics drivers all that often and you used to use ATI. Have you checked to see if there is an update? Might help.

Perryg wrote:Possibly, but it could also be an issue with the hosts graphics adapter. I just remedied an issue with 3D and the problem was an nVidia issue with the next release of VirtualBox.
IIRC Mac does not update its graphics drivers all that often and you used to use ATI. Have you checked to see if there is an update? Might help.

hmmm. actually I'm not sure Apple ever updates it's graphics drivers but since this iMac as you might see in my signature, is only 6 months old and is using nVidia I doubt there would be many updates at any rate.

edit: I don't know why it would only involve Cinnamon. Unity works fine although sometimes Gnome 3 doesn't. I might as well note 3D has always been iffy on Mac hosts with either AMD or nVidia. I've had issues now on three different Macs from 2007, 2011 and 2012.

Oh I believe you. Its just that if Unity works and another DE does not there must be something in the source of that DE that is at least relevant to the cause. Cinnamon still uses Gnome3 as its base by the way, which I suspect to be the underlying cause. I have had nothing but issues since they decided to change. I also read that some of these issues are being addressed upstream and that is Gnome and freedesktop. Not saying VBox is not part of the problem either, but I see the whole picture and say all of it could be better, but that takes time and money.

Oh well off my soap box.

Perryg wrote:Oh I believe you. Its just that if Unity works and another DE does not there must be something in the source of that DE that is at least relevant to the cause. Cinnamon still uses Gnome3 as its base by the way, which I suspect to be the underlying cause. I have had nothing but issues since they decided to change. I also read that some of these issues are being addressed upstream and that is Gnome and freedesktop. Not saying VBox is not part of the problem either, but I see the whole picture and say all of it could be better, but that takes time and money.

Oh well off my soap box.

I understand. I just wonder if the developers are writing for Macs or for a particular set of graphics drivers. Graphics drivers for Macs are directly tied in with the OS so unless Apple updates them in the latest revision of the OS they will remain the same. What I think I could do is dual boot Windows 7, try VirtualBox from there because I "think" I can update the Bootcamp video drivers. Sounds like a pain though.

I just looked at both Parallel's and VMWare's forums for their Mac VM software and apparently they are both having issues with Cinnamon. So it's not just a VirtualBox issue. Just thought I would mention it.

Pretty much what I was getting at. They have a ways to go but even so I prefer it to most of what they have available. Remember cinnamon DE is the baby of DEs

Perryg wrote:Pretty much what I was getting at. They have a way to go but even so I prefer it to most of what they have available. Remember cinnamon DE is the baby of DEs

well, I'm just going to stick with the DEs that are working which are plentiful.

It is a tiny bit more stable in Virtual Box 4.2.6 r82870..

However, for releases 4.2.10, 4.2.12, Mint 15 almost immediately crashes. So I think it must be a (excuse my french) f*ck-up by the the 3D engine in VBox for Mac.

.... ah darn... it crashed also.... back to Pear OS!!!