virtualbox.org

I installed VirtualBox in Ubuntu using the Synaptic package manager including the kernel driver and then I installed Windows XP. Everything works great except that I can't get my logitech trackball to work. Everytime I click inside the virtualbox, I get a capture dialog, but even though I click on the capture button, the mouse does not work. Any ideas?

Start Guest without USB Access.

How do I do that?

Just for the heck of it, I uninstalled version 1.5 which comes with Ubuntu and tried the 1.6*.deb version from virtualbox's website. After installing it, I noticed that it has a USB section so I thought surely, this one should work. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Even though I enabled USB controller and USB 2.0 as well as adding filters for the three USB devices it still does not recognize the USB devices in Windows XP. When I click on devices and go to USB, the 3 devices are there, but they are greyed out and anytime I click on the virtualbox, it will not capture my trackball. I even tried a regular USB mouse, but the same thing happens.

Here is the list of USB devices that is greyed out:

Microsoft [0173] (I have no idea what this is)
Corsair Flash Voyager [1100] (USB Flash drive 4GB)
Logitech Trackball [0220]

Any one have any ideas how to enable USB?

Z.K.

Yes the Users "FAQ" and "User Doc" have top Ideas about this.

Yea well, I looked at the user manual and the FAQ several times and it did not really help that much. Still I did finally figure it out. Even though I clicked on load guest additions, nothing really happened. Then I noticed that when I reboot after that, a virtual CD named guest additions is in My Computer. So, I went into the CD and executed the VBoxGuestAdditions.exe file. After that I mouse works fine, but I still cannot access my USB flash drive. Still, that is not a big deal as I can always use a shared folder.

I'd like to support Z.K.'s assertion that even following the troubleshooting section closely does not help this situation.

I had Vbox 1.5 running like a charm on Ubuntu 7.10 with WinXP Pro guest with USB working reasonably well. Compared to VMWare product, it was a dream to use.

Silly me upgraded Ubuntu to Hardy having tested Hardy in Vbox for some time. Vbox didnt work: tried to recompile it, reconfigure etc. Uninstalled 1.5 and downloaded the .deb for Hardy. Installed it and imported the WinXP guest.
All ok except for two problems which everyone is reporting on this and the ubuntu forums, with no solution thus far:

1: USB > the devices are recognised by VirtualBox, and can be seen when running the Windows Guest by right-clicking on the USB icon bottom right, but the USB devices themselves are greyed out and not selectable.
I've tried a range of usb devices, including those never used before. The result is consistent - Unavailable.
I've tried running Vbox as Root, and logging in to windows with the built in admin account - no dice.
I suspect it is partly a bug in VirtualBox and partly that Hardy (the host) is quite different from Gutsy in terms of security on devices.

2: Guest display size. The host has a lovely 1680x1050 resolution. Previously, VBox guest WinXP in "Full Screen" mode correctly did just that. Now, as widely reported by others, the max resolution available to the Guest is 1152x864 - and in full screen mode, there is a large amount of black border space around the guest.
It seems that there is a problem interpreting the Host available resolutions. Again, this might be a problem generated by the host OS changes - but it is not possible to test this against the previous version of vbox. Maybe when "updating" the product to include the Sun branding, something was inadvertantly buggered up?

So - any bright ideas?
NOTE: I've already run through the manual forwards, backwards, sideways. I've edited and unedited fstab, modprobe.d, and all of the other suggested config files that people have suggested.

My testing methodology is "make one change, then test the result before making another change"...

I hope by posting this that those who understand "under the covers" can indentify that there is definitely a bug to fix.