Arch Linux

Bobby Wan-Kenobi

Banned

Registered: 2019-03-22

Posts: 15

[SOLVED]Adjusting framebuffer size. VirtualBox: macOS host, Arch guest

I've followed the instructions of the wiki to achieve what my post title says. By the way, I'm not using any display server (X11), just want to adjust the resolution on the TTY .

This is what I've done so far:

$ pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils-nox

I have the default kernel, so I chose option 2. That installs 2 packages:

• virtualbox-guest-modules-arch-6.0.4-14

• virtualbox-guest-utils-nox-6.0.4-14

On macOS I set the resolution of my virtual machine:

$ VBoxManage setextradata "Arch-5.0.2" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"

Then reboot the virtual machine, and tried to add a kernel parameter via GRUB. I edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg and added the lines:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080x32
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

Then I loaded the VirtualBox kernel modules:

systemctl enable vboxservice.service

Rebooted, but the TTY resolution hasn't changed, still small.

Last edited by Bobby Wan-Kenobi (2019-03-23 13:23:30)

jernst

Member

From: Silicon Valley

Registered: 2014-03-04

Posts: 307

Re: [SOLVED]Adjusting framebuffer size. VirtualBox: macOS host, Arch guest

Are you running this on a Retina display?

If so, in VirtualBox: Settings / Display, set Scale Factor to 200% or so. You can even do this for a running VM.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,689

Re: [SOLVED]Adjusting framebuffer size. VirtualBox: macOS host, Arch guest

If your virtual guest is in EFI mode, you can use VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/EfiGraphicsResolution HxV
You can have a look at this at 3.14.1.

Bobby Wan-Kenobi

Banned

Registered: 2019-03-22

Posts: 15

Re: [SOLVED]Adjusting framebuffer size. VirtualBox: macOS host, Arch guest

- No retina display, iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013).
- No EFI; BIOS, and I had already checked about VESA resolutions. In my original post, already tried an analogous solution to the one you propose:

$ VBoxManage setextradata "Arch-5.0.2" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"

Thanks guys ;-)

Bobby Wan-Kenobi

Banned

Registered: 2019-03-22

Posts: 15

Re: [SOLVED]Adjusting framebuffer size. VirtualBox: macOS host, Arch guest

I found the problem: I was editing directly the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and that's not right.

Instead I should have edited /etc/default/grub and save the changes regenerating the grub configuration with:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

All that I did in my original post is correct, except the correction above.

By the way, if the command hwinfo --framebuffer doesn't work for you, the resolution supported by the virtual machine can be found pressing C during the GRUB menu. We'll access the GRUB console, where we can use the vbeinfo command. It outputs the list of supported resolutions that our virtual graphic card supports via VBE.