Arch Linux

engelmic

Member

Registered: 2015-11-06

Posts: 3

Trouble with both KDE and GNOME on arch guest in virtualbox [SOLVED]

**Disclaimer** Arch N00b, read with caution

I have recently installed arch in virtualbox. I can startx with twm and xfce, but gnome gives me the "oh no, something has gone wrong" message, and KDE throws a ton of error messages. I can't find any helpful info on debugging the issue, and based on the number of successful users I have read about, I think it must be my error. The fact that xfce works has me puzzled, though.

I have VBoxClient-all in my .xinitrc as well as vboxservice.service enabled via sysctl
I have virtualbox 3D acceleration enabled and have mesa installed

Please help - I can append log files as long as I am told what/where
Xorg.0.log didn't seem to have anything pertinent and journalctl gave a gnome-shell core dump, but no additional info

I have gnome running via vmware workstation (in arch guest) on another PC, so I strongly suspect it is virtualbox related....

Last edited by engelmic (2015-11-27 16:38:52)

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: Trouble with both KDE and GNOME on arch guest in virtualbox [SOLVED]

Have you followed https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Vi … nux_guests to the letter?

EDIT: Have you tried loading the modules manually, instead of running the service?
EDIT: Have you checked the status of the vbox service?

Last edited by Awebb (2015-11-06 08:21:35)

engelmic

Member

Registered: 2015-11-06

Posts: 3

Re: Trouble with both KDE and GNOME on arch guest in virtualbox [SOLVED]

Yessir, I have.

I have verified with systemctl the service started and is running.
I have verified that the kernel modules are loaded with lsmod.
I have tried manually loading the kernel modules despite the above 2 facts.

I have verified the host kernel modules are loaded on the host.

my .xinitrc file contains the "/usr/bin/VBoxClient-all" although I believe gnome should start without that.

The head scratcher for me is that XFCE works but gnome and KDE do not.

engelmic

Member

Registered: 2015-11-06

Posts: 3

Re: Trouble with both KDE and GNOME on arch guest in virtualbox [SOLVED]

figured this one out - feel real dumb...

tried to start gnome and kde using full paths.
for xfce this works

/usr/bin/startxfce

but these don't

/usr/bin/startkde
/usr/bin/gnome-session

you must use

exec startkde
exec gnome-session

lesson learned
hopefully some other noob can gain some knowledge through this...

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: Trouble with both KDE and GNOME on arch guest in virtualbox [SOLVED]

Good! Edit the thread title and mark it as [SOLVED].