Arch Linux

rockhazard

Member

Registered: 2011-05-14

Posts: 7

[SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

I've read through the forums and wikis, and nothing seems to address my issue well enough.  I've got Arch installed and running in as a guest in VBox 4.06.  The modprobe on startup for vbox guest additions seems to fail.  To sum up: main user is in video group, I've got vid drivers installed (although none available are specific to vbox that I can tell), Xorg and gdm run fine, although startx doesn't seem to work (I've got a .xinitrc with the appropriate exec gnome-session line).  I have to start guest additions manually once I've logged in to a terminal, and gnome3 forces me into fallback mode, which is my main issue.  I've confirmed with ps aux that vbox is running.  Any ideas?

Last edited by rockhazard (2011-05-14 15:45:48)

dodo3773

Member

Registered: 2011-03-17

Posts: 814

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

I've read through the forums and wikis, and nothing seems to address my issue well enough.  I've got Arch installed and running in as a guest in VBox 4.06.  The modprobe on startup for vbox guest additions seems to fail.  To sum up: main user is in video group, I've got vid drivers installed (although none available are specific to vbox that I can tell), Xorg and gdm run fine, although startx doesn't seem to work (I've got a .xinitrc with the appropriate exec gnome-session line).  I have to start guest additions manually once I've logged in to a terminal, and gnome3 forces me into fallback mode, which is my main issue.  I've confirmed with ps aux that vbox is running.  Any ideas?

Are you sure that VirtualBox has good enough virtual 3d graphic support to run gnome-shell correctly? I have a feeling Gnome 3 will probably keep forcing you into fallback despite your best efforts. They talk about it briefly on the Gnome webstie    http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

To run GNOME Shell inside a virtual machine would require good 3D support, and we don't know of any virtualization system that can handle it. In particular, problems have been reported with the GNOME Shell and the 3D support in VirtualBox.

rockhazard

Member

Registered: 2011-05-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

Ah.  Well that does answer the question I suppose.  After all, copy and paste as well as mouse integration are both working, although I'm getting that pesky "Protocol Error" when I try and mount a share.  I'm reinstalling GuestAdditions now, and I've also installed KDE as a testbed to see if it encounters any trouble.  Thanks for the info!

UPDATE:  Well, it seems you were definitely right.  After tinkering, I got the graphics to respond, but 3D compositing doesn't work, and even though the desktop will stretch with the Vbox window, I'm still in fallback.  Also KDE isn't having any trouble, so I guess that seals it.  Now I'm going to have to install Arch to a USB stick to get what I want from gnome3.

Last edited by rockhazard (2011-05-14 05:54:41)

dodo3773

Member

Registered: 2011-03-17

Posts: 814

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

Ah.  Well that does answer the question I suppose.  After all, copy and paste as well as mouse integration are both working, although I'm getting that pesky "Protocol Error" when I try and mount a share.  I'm reinstalling GuestAdditions now, and I've also installed KDE as a testbed to see if it encounters any trouble.  Thanks for the info!

A while back I had some problems with the guest additions. So I went to http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/ and downloaded the VBoxGuestAdditions_(version number).iso then  pointed my vm to that iso instead of the guest additions that came with it and that worked. Might want to try that too if you keep running into problems.

rockhazard

Member

Registered: 2011-05-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

Well, I've got the latest version.  I'm not sure it would help.  But I guess it's worth a try.  But I'm beginning to think I want more performance anyway, which is only going to come from installing to a stick, since I can't really fully install to my machine right now.

dodo3773

Member

Registered: 2011-03-17

Posts: 814

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

Well, I've got the latest version.  I'm not sure it would help.  But I guess it's worth a try.  But I'm beginning to think I want more performance anyway, which is only going to come from installing to a stick, since I can't really fully install to my machine right now.

I am not so sure that you will get any performace increases if running from a usb stick (if that is what you are talking about) or a livecd (it has not been my experience anyway). But you should be able to try out the gnome-shell if that is what your after. I am pretty sure there is a way to get that type of install to use your real graphics card. Oh, and if your problem has been solved please mark it as solved. In case you don't know how  README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

rockhazard

Member

Registered: 2011-05-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED]VirtualBox and Gnome3 Issue

Thanks. I was looking for thread tools to do that -- it was staring me in the face.