01-22-2010, 03:16 PM

Hi all,

I am pretty familiar with VirtualBox and Linux both but, I can NOT figure out how to get Guest Additions installed. I have the disk image icon for VB Guest Additions on the Ubuntu Guest but I can't seem to mount it, etc.

Mac OSX 10.6.2
Ubuntu 9.10 guest
VirtualBox 3.1.2

Everything is running fine and ubuntu is up to date. I have guest additions installed, how do I

Thanks in advance for the advice.
Hutch

01-22-2010, 03:23 PM

Dont you install the guest additions through Virtual box itself?

When you start a virtual machine one of the top menu items in VB is Devices, can you install guest additions from that menu?

01-22-2010, 03:29 PM

Well, I think that's where the Virtual Box CD Icon (that is now on the ubuntu desktop) came from. I opened the "monuted" CD Icon and ran the install.sh script. It did a bunch of "stuff", finished and said hit Enter to exit. I did all that and I still dont know how to run in full screen. Maybe it's a resolution issue. I really just wanted to share folders, etc but would like to have Ubuntu via VB in a spaces "window?"

Thanks,
Hutch

01-22-2010, 03:30 PM

Even if you can't - it should appear as a mounted CD within ubuntu - if using ubuntu desktop you should be able to locate it in its filemanager, and if using server - I don't think it automounts CDs so you'll have to issue a mount command to mount the drive onto a folder (this applies to server only, not desktop ubuntu).

Another question tho - are the virtual box tools in 3.1.2 compatible with ubuntu 9.10?

To chashutch: lol, looks like I just couldn't type fast enough, beat me by a minute

01-22-2010, 03:32 PM

Good question about the tools compatibility. I am still googling.

Thanks,
Hutch

01-22-2010, 03:35 PM

Actually, the full screen functionality, isn't that within virtual box, not the guest - I mean, there should be a menu option in virtualbox to set the display to full screen rather then a window which should have nothing to do with the tools...

The tools should just improve performance and make sharing easier - even so, with a network between the virtual machine and the host OS, they should still be able to see each other thru the network functionality regardless of the tools assuming you have samba setup on Ubuntu (which it should be active by default on the desktop version) and smb sharing turned on on the sharing preference pane in OSX....

01-22-2010, 03:44 PM

I fixed the problem.

After I installed guest additions as per above (opened the mounted guest additions CD in the Ubuntu Desktop, double-clicked autorun.sh and followed the prompts).

My problem was that I tried to increase the default (800x600) resolution in the ubuntu guest (system/preferences/display) while in the guest window (NOT FULL SCREEN) and I could not increase it. 800x600 was the max it could go. I then put the guest session in full screen (command+f). This presents the 800x600 version of the guest in a small screen in the middle of the full screened window. I again tried to change resolution and viola, it let me increase it to 1200x800.

Thanks for the help.
Hutch

01-22-2010, 03:48 PM

@nethfel - right, there is no need for the tools. Everything I am doing is local to the machine (the macbook is networked to my server anyway).

I have read about folks trying to choose between Parallels, VMWare and Virtualbox. VBox is more than adequate for what I need (testing software on different OS's) and it really seems to run faster than on the actual hardware (no moving parts...).

Thanks again for the help,
Hutch