Arch Linux

Leloup

Member

Registered: 2025-02-21

Posts: 14

VMWGFX is not compatible with VirtualBox

Bonjour,

The error "kernel: vmwgfx 0000:00:02.0: [drm] *ERROR* vmwgfx seems to be running on an unsupported hypervisor. " on the Arch Linux virtual machine running VirtualBox on a Windows 10 host indicates a compatibility problem between the graphics driver used by the guest operating system and the VirtualBox hypervisor.

It seems that Arch Linux is trying to use the VMWGFX graphics driver, which is not compatible with VirtualBox. However, from the machine manager, the Graphic Controller setting is VMSVGA. It seems that VMWGFX is for VMware.
I've tried to change the Graphics Controller from VMSVGA to VBoxSVGA but it's apparently impossible.
Video memory seems to be set correctly.
I tried to disable Hyper-V on Windows but it was already done.
I'm not sure if VMWGFX supports OpenGL, which could explain the OpenGL errors visible in the logs.

Hasn't another VirtualBox-compatible graphics driver been coded in Arch linux?

Regards,

Leloup

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,476

Re: VMWGFX is not compatible with VirtualBox

virtualbox-guest-utils installed and vboxservice enabled as described in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Virtua … as_a_guest ? Which version of virtualbox? Also this message simply means that, you're running on the vmware module/GPU stack and the driver is not officially from vmware, on it's own that message is normal and shouldn't be inherently cause for concern.

Last edited by V1del (2025-04-23 10:06:15)

Leloup

Member

Registered: 2025-02-21

Posts: 14

Re: VMWGFX is not compatible with VirtualBox

Thank you for your message V1del

VBoxClient --version
7.1.8r168469

systemctl status vboxservice.service
enabled and active