xorg.conf Keeps Changing

[midair5]

I am running Red Hat Enterprise 5 in Virtual Box on a Windows 7 32 bit host. VB version is 5.1.0 r108711. On every reboot of the virtual machine, the guest additions rewrite my xorg.conf file which leaves me stuck at 800x600 video resolution. How do I stop the xorg.conf file from being re-written or how do I get the screen resolution up to 1024x768 and backingstore turned on.

Thanks.

[socratis]

On every reboot of the virtual machine, the guest additions rewrite my xorg.conf

How do you know that it's the guest additions (GAs) that are overwriting the xorg.conf? It could be very easy to test. Just uninstall the GAs and see if the configuration sticks. If not, re-install the GAs and post a VBox.log:

1. Start the VM. Not from a saved or suspended state. Clean start.
2. Shut down the VM. Not suspended, not paused. Shut down.
3. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show Log..."
4. Save it (just the first log), ZIP it and attach it in your response (see the "Upload attachment" at the bottom of the form).

[midair5]

I had great difficulty after uninstalling the guest additions from the Linux guest. Once done, the network services would not work. All config files looked correct but it would still not start. I ended up re-installing the guest operating system. After installing the guest additions, I am now back to where I started. I cannot change the guest display resolution at all. It is stuck on 800x600 - which was the original issue and why I was hacking the xorg.conf file. I've included the log you asked for. I included the log from the first startup before the guest additions were installed.

Thanks for your help.

[socratis]

I included the log from the first startup before the guest additions were installed.

Nice thinking! That helps. However, you didn't follow the instructions that I gave you in the previous post. They were there for a reason. You skipped step #2 altogether. The end result is that both the logs are truncated. Not what I was hoping for, but we can still see a couple of things.

00:00:02.738601 Guest OS type: 'Linux26'

You have selected the generic Linus template. I would go for the Red Hat 32- or 64-bit (you don't specify which version you installed), but you should pick what's appropriate.

00:00:02.606501 Host RAM: 2045MB total, 1138MB available
00:00:03.098255   RamSize           <integer> = 0x000000003da00000 (1 033 895 936, 986 MB)
00:00:03.098855   VRamSize         <integer> = 0x0000000002800000 (41 943 040, 40 MB)

Your machine is seriously under-powered (at 2GB RAM) to have a guest like RHEL. Now, you have 1138MB free at the launch of the VM and you allocate 968+40=1038MB to the guest. Add to that some overhead and you won't be able to run Calculator on your host. You either need to buy some RAM or not run any application on your host (if possible).

00:01:17.303463 Display::handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=08db0000 w=1024 h=768 bpp=24 cbLine=0xC00 flags=0x1
00:01:17.303740 GUI: UIMachineView::sltHandleNotifyChange: Screen=0, Size=1024x768
00:01:17.303761 GUI: UIFrameBufferPrivate::handleNotifyChange: Size=1024x768
00:01:17.304020 GUI: UIFrameBufferPrivate::performResize: Size=1024x768, Directly using source bitmap content

This is from the VM with no GAs installed. It clearly shows that there was a screen resize to 1024x768 but at 24-bit color depth. Any explanation?

[midair5]

Okay, I started over again. Hopefully, I did it correctly. I got a new set of logs with and without the guest additions. This time the guest additions uninstall went off without a hitch.

As to the other questions. First, I hadn't realized I selected the wrong template - or at least not quite the correct one, so that has been corrected. And it was a 32 bit Red Hat installation. The Windows guest is also 32 bit.

Second, in regards to the system memory. That seems to be a topic for a whole host of other threads. Bottom line is that despite the fact that there is 8 GB of memory in the system, BIOS sees all 8 GB and Windows sees all 8 GB, it says only 2 GB are available. Resource monitor shows 6 GB as hardware reserved. Haven't found a solution for that yet but is outside the scope of this post, so will move on.

As to the last question of a screen resize before the guest additions were installed, I probably had done that after the VM was re-imaged. It's automatic for me as I'm just trying to get a reasonable display size so I can see the whole desktop. As it is now, a terminal window barely fits.

Thanks again for your help.

[socratis]

Second, in regards to the system memory. That seems to be a topic for a whole host of other threads.

[Citation needed] And I don't mean the numbers reported. I mean an error in the numbers reported, i.e. a case where VirtualBox got it wrong.

Bottom line is that despite the fact that there is 8 GB of memory in the system, BIOS sees all 8 GB and Windows sees all 8 GB, it says only 2 GB are available. Resource monitor shows 6 GB as hardware reserved.

[Proof needed] Preferably screenshots. Truncated. And a picture of the BIOS from a phone or a camera. Because this has got to be the weirdest thing that I've heard in a long time. 6GB reserved by the hardware???
Also note that it's not "only 2 GB are available", it's "only 2 GB are total".

screen resize before the guest additions were installed, I probably had done that after the VM was re-imaged.

What does that even mean? Can you please elaborate?

Now, I see again the screen getting resized to 1024x768x24. I'm not sure if this is due to the "re-imaging" that you refer to. The fact remains that there is nothing strange that pop-up in the logs.

One last thing that you could do is to post the "/var/log/vboxadd-install.log" and "/var/log/vboxadd-install-x11.log", after you've installed the GAs, to see if anything failed during the GAs' installation.

[midair5]

[Citation needed] And I don't mean the numbers reported. I mean an error in the numbers reported, i.e. a case where VirtualBox got it wrong.

I don't think that VirtualBox got it wrong. IMO, VirtualBox is reporting what Windows says it has access to. There are a whole host of questions on other sites including Microsoft's regarding this issue of total memory vs usable memory. None of the solutions to that that I have found thus far have changed how much usable memory I have. Here is a shot of this system from right clicking on computer and selecting properties.

Properties.JPG (28.4 KiB) Viewed 3916 times

[Proof needed] Preferably screenshots. Truncated. And a picture of the BIOS from a phone or a camera. Because this has got to be the weirdest thing that I've heard in a long time. 6GB reserved by the hardware???
Also note that it's not "only 2 GB are available", it's "only 2 GB are total".

Resource Monitor.JPG (27.93 KiB) Viewed 3916 times

What does that even mean? Can you please elaborate?

Sorry, when I said "re-image" I meant that I completely re-installed the Linux operating system in the VM. I completely started over from scratch.

Now, I see again the screen getting resized to 1024x768x24. I'm not sure if this is due to the "re-imaging" that you refer to. The fact remains that there is nothing strange that pop-up in the logs.

I had uninstalled the guest additions to try and get the full log files you were looking for. When the guest additions were uninstalled, the uninstall script must have put the original xorg.conf file back so when I rebooted, it did resize the screen. I didn't do that myself, it happened automatically.

I've added the log files from /var/log/vboxa*

[socratis]

Thank you for answering all of my questions! I will take a look at your logs in a while, but, first I've got to find about this weird RAM behavior on Windows. You got my curiosity maxed out!

[midair5]

And here's the BIOS photo.

BIOS.jpg (86.63 KiB) Viewed 3915 times

[socratis]

A couple of things. First of all, you have a 32-bit Windows installation, so the maximum amount of memory that Windows (any edition) can see is 4 GB. So, your 8 GB that you have installed, I'm afraid is getting wasted on a 32-bit OS.

Second, I can't tell from the picture, but if you have the Win7 Starter edition, then it is artificially limited to 2 GB max. Is that the version you have?

I've included a small table from a Microsoft support article which explains the whole thing (The usable memory may be less than the installed memory on Windows 7-based computers, KB978610):

Version               32-bit    64-bit
--------------------------------------
Windows 7 Ultimate      4 GB    192 GB
Windows 7 Enterprise    4 GB    192 GB
Windows 7 Professional  4 GB    192 GB
Windows 7 Home Premium  4 GB     16 GB
Windows 7 Home Basic    4 GB      8 GB
Windows 7 Starter       2 GB      2 GB

[midair5]

I had already found that chart and no, I don't have the starter version.

[socratis]

OK, I finally took a look at your logs and I can't see anything suspicious. But that's as far as my X11 experience goes. I think I'll let an X11 expert take another look and see if they could help you out (educating myself in the process).