Hi again, testing virtual box on Mandriva Spring at the moment - but having a few problems. Just installed Slackware 12 in virtual box. The install proceeded without hiccup, but I couldn't find a graphics card to suit mine when I ran xorgconfig. I have tried all sorts of combinations - without success.

The result of this was an error saying my screen couldn't be found.

I am testing Mandriva on my Dell Dimension 5000 with its built in graphics card Intel (R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family 128MB

Is there anyone with some ideas as to how I can proceed?

As always, much appreciate any help I can get on this matter.

bookie

The graphics card in the virtual machine is not the same as the one in your host machine. To enable the higher resolution display (or even X), I think you have to install the guest additions for VirtualBox, which should then autoconfigure xorg.conf for you (if I'm not mistaken), allowing you to startx normally.

I have not yet managed to get a Slack installation working yet (from a windows host), but VirtualBox definitely doesn't use the host machine's graphics card - it creates a VirtualBox graphics adaptor, and they provide the driver for that in the guest additions.

There should be more info in the user guide on their website: http://www.virtualbox.org/download/UserManual.pdf

If you don't have the Guest Additions, then the vesa driver should give you a usable display.

Jim

jkerr82508 is correct. In any case start with the vesa driver to get a GUI (makes life simpler), then install the guest add-ons.

IIRC, the Mandriva package does not include the guest add-ons iso image. I got my copy of Virtual Box from their WEB site. I haven't tried Slack yet, I'll have to ... soon .

Hi again, thanks for the info guys. I have some more questions, so I will take them one at time. How and where do I install the guest additions? How do I choose the vesa driver? Do I choose it in the install of Slackware? I haven't seen any options to choose the vesa driver? If I choose to download and install the commercial edition of virtualbox - is there anyone who can help me with that install?

Sorry for so many questions - trying to kill a lot of birds with one stone - so to speak.



bookie

Just a little update for you. I have installed the 1.4 version of virtual box by using the backports depositories.
I managed to login and run startx on Slackware 12 without problems. The sound card is also installed no problem. The internet connection seems to be another kettle of fish. I installed my network card as usual in Slackware. I have a firewall, so my settings are as follows:
Guest IP address is 192.168.0.199 which is the same as my host machine (Mandriva). The firewall settings are the same in Slackware as Mandriva 192.168.0.1. My DNS settings also mirror my host machine.

How do I setup virtual box to allow me access to the Internet when using Slackware?


bookie

I generally just use DHCP for network connections, and of all the distributions I've installed under VirtualBox, this has always worked fine.

I am a little confused by your comments. My host distro goes via a firewall with its own IP address as explained, so DHCP wouldn't work?

Or is it that it doesn't matter what the settings are for the host distro, if I set the guest distro to DHCP?

Can you be a little more specific.

bookie

In my experience, that's more or less it. If I'm not mistaken, VirtualBox by default sets up NAT for the guest system, allowing it to forward all traffic through the existing connection on the host. This doesn't affect your host firewall, but it does allow your guest to use the existing network connection (with a few caveats - samba filesharing limitations being one). You can also configure VirtualBox to use a software network card (host interface networking) where you would need to set up the network connection with the information needed to connect to your 'real' network.

For more info, see Chapter 6 (Virtual Networking) in the user manual I linked to above.

Thanks for the info. I will get back to you as soon as I have tested everything.


Thanks again.

bookie

Well, I ran netconfig before running startx and configured DHCP. I then rebooted and tried getting out on the Internet - Yes!


Thanks for the help. Have you seen how to set up the mouse in virtual box?


bookie

What do you mean "set up the mouse"? It should just work!

If you mean the clever integration mouse stuff, you need to install the guest additions for that to work. I'm sure the user manual covers installing the guest additions.

Thanks for the update. I was having problems scrolling, but I will check out the user manuals.

Thanks
bookie

That might be a problem with slackware - search for threads here on ZAxisMapping and Slackware - that should turn up the answer for you.

Hint: it's in your xorg.conf file that you will need to make that change

Thanks for the update. will take your advice - thanks.

Bookie