Arch Linux

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

I have virtualbox (ver. 4.3.6) running on a Win7 host. Can't make the guest OS go full screen. I've seen multiple threads floating around the web all with the same advice, install guest additions...

I added the guest additions (virtualbox-guest-utils) following the instructions on the arch virtualbox wiki, rather than the official virtualbox installation method. I can verify that the guest additions are installed by clicking "Session Information" and it shows that Guest Additions are 4.3.6. I also tried changing the resolution from virtualbox.

I don't use virtualbox that often. Any pointers or things I can check for to nail down what's going on?

Thanks

Last edited by w201 (2014-01-24 15:17:25)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,722

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

Have you run VBoxClient-all on the guest?

Can you verify you have installed: virtualbox-guest-modules and virtualbox-guest-utils

Also, ensure these three modules are loaded into the kernel in the VM:

ewaller@localhost:~[2] 1019 %lsmod | grep \^vb
vboxsf                 35026  1 
vboxvideo               1237  1 
vboxguest             162523  5 vboxsf
ewaller@localhost:~ 1020 %

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w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

Everything checks out.

[arch@XPS]-[~]  lsmod | grep \^vb
vboxvideo        1973  0
vboxsf          34614  0  
vboxguest      185938  2 vboxsf
[arch@XPS]-[~]

**EDIT**

Just one thing maybe worth noting... when I boot into the shell, I get a very tiny window, but when I execute startx and it drops me into my DE, the window automatically resizes itself. It's slightly bigger but not yet full screen.

Last edited by w201 (2014-01-24 16:34:36)

nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,548

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

Everything checks out.

[arch@XPS]-[~]  lsmod | grep \^vb
vboxvideo        1973  0
vboxsf          34614  0  
vboxguest      185938  2 vboxsf
[arch@XPS]-[~]

**EDIT**

Just one thing maybe worth noting... when I boot into the shell, I get a very tiny window, but when I execute startx and it drops me into my DE, the window automatically resizes itself. It's slightly bigger but not yet full screen.

That's the guest additions doing that.

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I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

So at least we know the guest additions are installed, do you have any clue how I can fix the full screen issue?

stryder

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 500

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

You have yet to answer ewaller's first question: Have you run VBoxClient-all on the guest?

nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,548

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

Even qemu will resize for a graphics screen, oops.  Seems like I was running VirtualBox guest the other day and it didn't want to go seamless or full screen now that I think about it.  But that was even with guest additions.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2014-01-25 14:30:57)

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I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

You have yet to answer ewaller's first question: Have you run VBoxClient-all on the guest?

That's what I meant by "everything checks out" but my mistake, that was probably a bit ambiguous.

But to be clear, I did in fact run VBoxClient-all, I double checked it in my commands history. I enabled vboxservice in systemd and installed virtualbox-guest-utils and virtualbox-guest-modules. Also created virtualbox.conf in /etc/modules-load.d which contains vboxguest, vboxsf and vboxvideo. If anyone wants to jump in and offer a solution or something I can check feel free, in the meantime I'm scanning the virtualbox manual which I just found out is detailed with information maybe I'll get lucky

falbani

Member

From: Buenos Aires - Argentina

Registered: 2010-02-02

Posts: 16

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

I was unable to share clipboard between a Win7 host and a ArchLinux guest.

I think that the source of my problem is the same as yours: systemd unit virtualbox-guest-utils looks like this:

# cat /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vboxservice.service 
[Unit]
Description=VirtualBox Guest Service
ConditionVirtualization=oracle

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/VBoxService -f

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

As you can see, there is no call to VBoxClient

As soon as I called VBoxClient --clipboard from the terminal, the clipboard started to work.

Maybe you need the same but with --seamless --display.

darlomrh

Member

Registered: 2014-04-28

Posts: 2

Re: VirtualBox Win7 Host, Arch Guest, No Full Screen

I posted something similar in the newbie section a month ago or so. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=180780

I never got to the bottom of what the vboxservice script actually did and just put VBoxClient-all in my startup script as I use openbox.