Slow VirtualBox launch since last Solus update

penny-farthing

Hello, last night I processed the latest Solus update (91 packages, 820,59 MiB).

Among other things, it contained an update for VirtualBox.

I noticed this morning that between the click to launch the application and the display of its window on the screen, 26 seconds elapsed, which seems unusual to me.

Is anyone experiencing the same thing?

Perhaps some feedback from @WetGeek ?

WetGeek

penny-farthing Perhaps some feedback from @WetGeek ?

I'm sorry this has been your experience, but it's been different here. I closed the VirtualBox manager that was open on its desktop on my laptop, and launched it again. As I did, I began counting off the seconds, and before I got to "two" it was up and running.

My eopkg history shows that mine was also upgraded from release 268 to 269 yesterday. I'll see if I can find out what was changed, but apparently it had no negative effect on my system. I would also like to hear from other VirtualBox users about this.

If you close VBox and restart the manager, does it open slowly the second time, too, or does it appear to be acting normally after that first experience?

penny-farthing

WetGeek

Not only did I quit the application, then relaunched it, still waiting 26 seconds for the VirtualBox window to appear.

I even uninstalled, then reinstalled the application, with the same result (I precise that I'm using the Budgie desktop).

I'd also like to ask you another question: I discovered the Gnome Boxes application some time ago and I find that installing ISO images is much quicker than with VirtualBox, is it the same for you? (however (unless I'm mistaken), Gnome Boxes doesn't let you connect a printer).

[deleted]

It was just a rebuild

WetGeek

penny-farthing I find that installing ISO images is much quicker than with VirtualBox

Yeah, I've used Boxes and I can understand the attraction. One reason it's faster is because it uses a lot of (reasonable) defaults. That makes it good for taking a good look at a distro. Currently, it's also handling full-screen VMs better in a Wayland session. I hope that one is fixed soon (upstream, not something we can fix).

But when I've tried Boxes and virt-manager, I've always wished that some of the VBox features were there. In my opinion, VBox seems to offer more features and more flexibility. Both systems can be useful, though, if used within their limits. They both use the same hypervisor, by the way - kvm.

penny-farthing

WetGeek

By changing the hypervisor mode (initially to 'default') to KVM, I actually felt better when browsing my virtual machine (thanks for the advice), but this had no effect on the application launch time.

I've just installed a mini-update for a qtstyleplugins package. After rebooting my computer, I restarted VirtualBox and the application window was displayed in less than two seconds like you! It's really great, thanks to @EbonJaeger for his responsiveness and its good care. 👏

So, I pass this post in solved status.