Vmware Opentools install prevents X from starting

WetGeek

ak1dd I tried Virtualbox 3 weeks ago with Ubuntu and Manjaro

Thanks for your response. For my part, the only reason I suggested VirtualBox if because I've successfully created VMs for all the new Solus editions (except Gnome) and wondered whether they might solve your problem.

It seems to be a question whether to use a reportedly faster platform that doesn't work, or a somewhat slower one that does work. 😀 My vote goes to the one that works.

ak1dd

WetGeek
understand your position. I really do. But so far the faster platform works on everything I've tried but Solus.

Solus repository has: open-vm-tools version 11.0.1.

Manjaro - also 11.0.1 all 3 flavors work fine with VMWare out of the box.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu use the much older 10.3.10 and they also work.

open-vm-tools is: Current release is 11.0.5

so probably not a problem with that package.

AkgunFatih

i just realized that my problem was not the virtualbox
the reason x did not start was because i had added nomodeset to my boot options

DataDrake

ak1dd Chill. They skipped 11.0.2-11.0.4 and it has only been 2 weeks since 11.0.5 dropped. During which time I was actively working to defend my dissertation proposal and @JoshStrobl was putting out a new release. I'll take a look when I do kernel updates on Sunday.

WetGeek

ak1dd understand your position

My position is that you should use whatever VM manager you're comfortable with. I was only suggesting a way you might be able to get things to work, as they do for me. Best of luck with your continued efforts!

ak1dd

DataDrake

Chill? I'm not in a rush and I'm not asking for anything.

I'm not suggesting an update to update. spent another afternoon trying to figure it out and thought I'd post what I found. and if you had read my post I said the version included does work on other distros.

Wasn't trying to do anything but help figure it out..

DataDrake

ak1dd Sorry, that's not how it came off.

ak1dd

WetGeek So I took your advice and relooked at VirtualBox. I have a question unrelated to this thread but don't see a DM feature. I installed Plasma but display will not resize beyond the default 800x600. I see there are a few posts concerning this on the KDE forums. You said you have it working? Is there something I'm missing there?

WetGeek

ak1dd Is there something I'm missing there?

As far as Solus is concerned, the KDE edition is very immature. Last Friday was the first update when it's been available, and I suspect that there will be pretty rapid progress. I was able to create a VirtualBox Solus Plasma VM on which I could play various games, and which had no problem going to full-screen.

However, there are enough nits in Plasma that I don't yet use it for serious computing. If the Budgie DE weren't so good, I'd probably spend a lot more time with Plasma, and eventually I'd probably like it a lot more. But Budgie IS available, and it's almost too good to be true.

I've changed to Solus 4.1 Budgie on my dev workstation, and today I removed the Plasma VM from VirtualBox. I still have both Budgie and Mate VMs on my daily-use laptop, and just don't need the third VM right now. I'm patient enough to wait a while and try it again.

The Solus development team is incredibly capable, and I'm sure that the Plasma edition will improve dramatically over the next few weeks, starting with today's upgrades. Meanwhile, you might take a look at my favorite DE. You might actually like it!

WetGeek

ak1dd Is there something I'm missing there?

The only thing I can think of is the Graphics Controller setting. Be sure you choose VBoxSVGA for that setting. Ignore the message from VBox where it says "Invalid setting detected."

Other than that, I selected Linux for the virtual file, then chose Arch Linux 64-bit. The rest of the settings are self-explanatory. I'd put money on the Graphics Controller setting being the root of your problem.

EDIT: Unlike other distros, Solus already has the guest additions installed that match the kernel. There's no need to load that ISO from the VBox manager and build the additions. Good luck with your Solus adventure!

Justin

WetGeek I don't believe 4.1 ISOs come with the guest additions any more. And if needed they are in the repository.

WetGeek

Justin

Are you sure about that? I created 4.1 VMs of Budgie, Mate, and Plasma with out knowing that, and I did it just as I created 4.0 VMs. I would have expected those VMs to fail to go full-screen, and I would have found out about the lack of guest additions before this.

I'm not arguing with you ... I just didn't realize this, and don't see how things worked for me without mounting the guest additions ISO and building them.

kyrios

WetGeek yes I am sure about that. The guest additions aren't shipped on the ISO's anymore with Solus 4.1 but they can be installed from the repo when needed.

WetGeek

kyrios yes I am sure about that

This is the kind of mystery I don't like. I just checked, and modprobe says that virtualbox-guest-current isn't installed, yet the Plasma VM is displayed at full-screen (full HD on this machine). I can't imagine how that's working.

Some new magic? An improvement in VBox?

WetGeek

WetGeek Some new magic? An improvement in VBox?

To make sure that I didn't create the 4.1 VMs in some kind of alternate reality, I just removed my 4.1 Budgie VM, and removed the virtual file from the Virtual Media Manager. With all traces of the previous Budgie VM now gone, I started from the very beginning, creating a new virtual file, and installing from the current ISO.

The resulting VM could be changed to full-HD with no problem, as before. Again, at a terminal I ran the command modprobe to check on the virtualbox-guest-current module, and it is not installed.

Any ideas why it doesn't seem to be needed anymore? I prefer murder mysteries to cyber mysteries.

kyrios

WetGeek The video drivers have been mainlined to the kernel since 4.14 so unless you switch to the LTS kernel (which is still 4.9.x), you won't face any issue on that side. You'll still face issues if you want to map a shared folder from the host on the guest machine if the additions aren't installed. It's also required for some other things to work like the shared clipboard, ubs 3.x, some video acceleration, etc.

DataDrake

WetGeek There are no additionally required modules for graphics on the 5 series kernels. You only need to install them for shared files/folders and a few networking things.