[Solved]trouble w/ video on ubuntu host

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 18. Sep 2008, 23:48

hello everyone. i'm still kinda new to linux (less than a year, so go easy) but i've really been liking it. now, i've been using VirtualBoxOSE from the ubuntu repos on my laptop for several months now without any trouble, but i recently put ubuntu (8.04 32-bit, so we all know what we're talking about here) on my desktop and have hit a major problem. when i start up Virtual Box, i get no video. i've uninstalled/reinstalled, and even got rid of OSE and installed the standard version (or whatever its called) from the sun web site (v2.02 or something similar), and i still get the same problems. i'm thinking it may be a video card driver, as i've had some issues with this in the past (i have a geforce 8800 gt 512 vRAM).

any help you guys can give would be greatly appreciated!

Post by **Sasquatch** » 19. Sep 2008, 22:41

It's not very clear where you get no video. Is it on the Host or the Guest (inside VB)? Please see the VirtualBox FAQ for some answers. The manual is also a good place to start. After that, read the Forum Posting Guide and provide some more information as of what you are trying to accomplish. Exact steps you follow to get to the result and the settings of the Guest.

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 20. Sep 2008, 00:51

it is the guest that has no video. the FAQ had no help (or even mention of this problem), nor has any searches i've done. as to what i'm trying to accomplish, running a VM of any kind, as i get no video, regardless of the guest OS. i'm not sure what settings might be relevant to the video, and i'm not on the computer in question at the moment.

thanks for the reply, though.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 20. Sep 2008, 01:14

You do realise that you have to install an OS first before you have anything in VirtualBox, right?

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 20. Sep 2008, 02:21

yes. as i said, i've been using Virtual Box for about 6 months. never had this problem on my laptop. regardless of OS i try to install i get no video (as in the install windows menus never show up, etc, unless i hit pause, at which point they show up, greyed out as is normal, but when i unpause it doesn't resume w/ video, i just get the same greyed out pause image).

it may have something to do with my video card, as i've had some Open GL issues before (although i've fixed those). the card is a GeForce 8800 GT 512vRAM, if that helps. i've not seen anything about issues with that card anywhere, but who knows.

again, thank you for the reply.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 20. Sep 2008, 20:05

This is really strange. Have you tried downgrading to a previous version that worked? Try 1.6.6 first.

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 21. Sep 2008, 23:39

yea, thats actually what i started w/ (its the version in the ubuntu repos, although that is also OSE... so it may not be the same, i'll give it a go and see what happens)

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 25. Sep 2008, 21:11

ok, so i've found that my videocard is apparently having alot of issues with opengl, both in linux and on my xp partition. would this possibly have anything to do with it, do you think?

eternal_sage · Post by **eternal_sage** » 26. Sep 2008, 19:41

n/m this is the exact same problem i was having:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=9178

and it seems to be solved. SDL problems make sense with a few other issues i've been having as well, so this should fix everything YAY!

thanks everyone for your help. and for those still having trouble, d/l the source from the SDL website and it should work great. the problem is with the Debian package.