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bkach

Member

Registered: 2016-12-15

Posts: 11

[Solved] Can't run startx on VirtualBox guest

I'm trying to run KDE on a VirtualBox on a Mac Host with an Arch guest.

When running sudo startx the x server starts and shuts down immediately. My .xserverrx file contains a shebang and exec startkde. In the /var/log/Xorg.0.log, I found that it fails to load the module vboxvideo, fbdev and vesa.

I also noticed that the first time i run startx it I get the following error:

dbus-update-activiation-environment: error: unable to connect to D-Bus: Using X1

I had already installed the virtualbox-guest-utils and ran the VBoxClient-all as well as enabled the vboxservice.service.

I'm a bit at a loss - what could be the problem? What would be the best way to go about troubleshooting and solving it?

Last edited by bkach (2017-06-15 07:26:49)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,791

Re: [Solved] Can't run startx on VirtualBox guest

Why are you trying to run startx as root?
That will lead to problems, not the least of which are related to D-Bus session bus.
Have you installed vboxvideo ?

Go find all the files owned by root in your user's home directory tree that were created when you ran startx as root.  Delete them.
Run startx as your regular user.  Every time someone runs X as root, God kills a kitten.

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bkach

Member

Registered: 2016-12-15

Posts: 11

Re: [Solved] Can't run startx on VirtualBox guest

I'll do my best not to kill any more kittens.

Copying the initial xinitrc (as referenced in the xinit arch wiki) did the trick!

Thanks for the advice, will not run it as root!

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: [Solved] Can't run startx on VirtualBox guest

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

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