Problems in VirtualBox with Plasma

arcaloid · 2015-02-27 00:24:27

Hi there,

I recently set up a fresh arch install in Oracle VirtualBox (4.3.22)(host is Windows 7 64bit) with having installed xorg, sddm and plasma-meta for a desktop environment. I basically followed the Beginners Guide and Installation steps for Arch Linux guests. Thanks to that info a lot is already working fine (writing this from within the VM) but I'm having a few issues and don't really know how to go on.

Most prominently, the autoresize feature of virtualbox isn't working (neither is fullscreen or seamless mode correctly), and Display Configuration in System Settings is only offering me quite a limited and impractical set of resolutions.

I enabled the vboxservice and made and linked an autostart script in ~/.config/autostart/ that calls 'VBoxClient --clipboard --display --checkhostversion'

[psifi@archolamin ~]$ systemctl status vboxservice.service -l
● vboxservice.service - VirtualBox Guest Service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/vboxservice.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2015-02-27 00:33:38 CET; 2min 15s ago
  Process: 184 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/modprobe vboxsf (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 179 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/modprobe vboxvideo (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 176 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/modprobe vboxguest (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 189 (VBoxService)
   CGroup: /system.slice/vboxservice.service
           └─189 /usr/bin/VBoxService -f

Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: VBoxService 4.3.22_OSE r98236 (verbosity: 0) linux.amd64 (Feb 18 2015 21:08:37) release log
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000080 main     Log opened 2015-02-26T23:33:38.884466000Z
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000190 main     OS Product: Linux
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000228 main     OS Release: 3.18.6-1-ARCH
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000263 main     OS Version: #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Feb 7 08:44:05 CET 2015
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000296 main     OS Service Pack: #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Feb 7 08:44:05 CET 2015
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000333 main     Executable: /usr/bin/VBoxService
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000334 main     Process ID: 189
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.000335 main     Package type: LINUX_64BITS_GENERIC (OSE)
Feb 27 00:33:38 archolamin VBoxService[189]: 00:00:00.001657 main     4.3.22_OSE r98236 started. Verbose level = 0
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ lsmod | grep vb
vboxsf                 41351  0 
vboxvideo              12437  1 
drm                   263481  3 vboxvideo
vboxguest             206333  5 vboxsf
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ pgrep -a VB
189 /usr/bin/VBoxService -f
392 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
393 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
405 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --display
414 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --seamless
415 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --seamless
421 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --draganddrop
422 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --draganddrop

Everything seems to be running and other features do work (like the shared clipboard) but not the resolution thingy. Also, something already seems a little weird, notice the multiple VBoxClient instances shown by pgrep. Now it get's more funny.
After some extended but fruitless searching and analyzing I tried to disable all vbox components to get to the root of the problem. But:

## 2 modules get loaded and I don't know why
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ systemctl status vboxservice.service 
● vboxservice.service - VirtualBox Guest Service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/vboxservice.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ ls -l /etc/modules-load.d/
total 0
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ lsmod | grep vb
vboxguest             206333  3 
vboxvideo              12437  1 
drm                   263481  3 vboxvideo

## VBoxClients still running and I don't know why
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ ls -l .config/autostart/
total 0
[psifi@archolamin ~]$ pgrep -a VB
380 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --display
1103 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --display
1345 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
1346 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
1358 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --display
1366 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --seamless
1368 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --seamless
1372 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --draganddrop
1373 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --draganddrop

I really don't understand what's going on here. Killing and restarting the VBoxClient processes doesn't seem to make a difference (except removing the duplicates). Oh, and there also is, possibly related:

[psifi@archolamin ~]$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE
[   655.104] Current Operating System: Linux archolamin 3.18.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Feb 7 08:44:05 CET 2015 x86_64
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[   655.125] (EE) systemd-logind: failed to get session: PID 1177 does not belong to any known session
[   655.134] (EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)
[   655.134] (EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module does not exist, 0)
[   655.978] (EE) AIGLX error: vboxvideo does not export required DRI extension
[   655.978] (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
[   656.038] (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "VirtualBox mouse integration" (type: TOUCHSCREEN, id 9)

(3D acceleration in the preferences of the vm is disabled because for me with it enabled plasma was hardly working at all, completely unusable)
So I wonder

Why is the resizing and screen resolution in general not working as intended? Probably something to do with the video driver?
Why or where are the modules and VBoxClient loaded?

I hope somebody can point me in the right direction. Maybe plasma 5 simply isn't ready enough yet for this to work? I've read somewhere that it uses quite a different graphics architecture, but for me this stuff still feels a bit over my head

On a side note - other problems that I haven't really looked into yet:
(*) switching tty completely destroys plasma session
(*) scrolling with mousewheel sometimes is "hanging" or even going in the opposite direction

fijam · 2015-03-19 23:39:47

Do the following

pacman -Suy mesa-demos 
glxinfo | grep 'renderer string'

If you get OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.6, 128 bits), welcome to the club: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=194678

arcaloid · 2015-03-21 12:22:43

yes it also shows gallium 0.4 on my side. however I have turned off 3d acceleration in the configuration of the vm (because otherwise plasma5 only was a flickering mess so far) and hence it isn't supposed to be 3d accelerated anyway, right?

the resolution issue has recently resolved on it's own over the course of a few system updates, but numerous other issues keep coming and going instead. I guess that's just the thing with bleeding edge software. Since I currently lack the time and expertise to dive into resolving all these things manually I guess I simply may come back to this at a later point in time, when everything has matured a bit more

but thank you nevertheless, I really appreciate the hint!

re_nelson · 2015-03-22 03:21:50

arcaloid wrote:

however I have turned off 3d acceleration in the configuration of the vm (because otherwise plasma5 only was a flickering mess so far) and hence it isn't supposed to be 3d accelerated anyway, right?
the resolution issue has recently resolved on it's own over the course of a few system updates, but numerous other issues keep coming and going instead. I guess that's just the thing with bleeding edge software.

If it's any consolation, the problem with Plasma 5 and "vboxvideo" happens here as well. The host system is Linux from Scratch and KDE4 worked flawless as a VirtualBox (4.3.26) Arch.x86_64 guest system. Just a few hours ago, I took the plunge and switched to Plasma 5 on a fully-updated Arch platform with kernel 3.19.2 and all the latest Xorg and Mesa packages.

It was necessary to disable "3D Acceleration" for the system to be usable. Prior to doing so, the display looked nice and pretty but all input events (mouse and keyboard) were not recognized. Plus the bottom-screen panel was not visible.

For what it's worth, KaOS.x86_64 was tried a month ago on VirtualBox. Its Plasma 5 environment was totally unusable with or without "3D Acceleration". Problems ranged from a black screen with only the Oxygen mouse cursor to erratic, flashing video.

Frankly, I still consider KF5/Plasma 5 to be in a state of flux (to put it kindly). I have successfully built and installed it on my LFS platform with zero errors during the compile process. But at launch time, all that occurs is a black screen with the Oyxgen mouse cursor. That said, sddm works fine and I'm now using it for my display manager rather than KDM.

I think KF5/Plasma 5 show great potential but like its KDE4 predecessor (which I love), it'll take some time to mature.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-02-27 00:24:27

Problems in VirtualBox with Plasma

#2 2015-03-19 23:39:47

Re: Problems in VirtualBox with Plasma

#3 2015-03-21 12:22:43

Re: Problems in VirtualBox with Plasma

#4 2015-03-22 03:21:50

Re: Problems in VirtualBox with Plasma

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