Hi guys

I have installed Linux in a virtualbox on a windows 8 laptop. I found the screen size in the vrtualbox running ubuntu to be too small so I looked around for a solution.

I came across this

'Use Xdiagnose From the Dash, search for and launch Xdiagnose, then enable all the options under the Debug section. Click the Apply button, then close the window and restart the system. You’ll have to restart. Logging out, then in won’t do.'

After doing so my screen went from bad to worse and now I can only see a pixelated view of my screen.

Does anyone know how to work around this problem and get a bigger screen in virtualbox ?

Have you installed virtualbox-guest-editions to the virtual machine?

It should give you an option to scale the screen.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi frankbell

Thanks for your reply. I have used the virtualbox-guest-editions. Still the same old problem. Wonder it has to do with windows 8.1.

if i am not wrong it will also depend on the host machine the highest resolution it will support.

if host machine supports high resolution then you would have a good chance that you will be able to make the screen size of your Vbox wider.

or try to download the latest graphic driver for your windows 8.1, be careful though if you download the wrong driver then you will have a black screen.

What linux distro do you have?


The guest additions are the normal answer.

Did you install and use the guest additions before or after your Xdiagnose issue?

Did you monitor the guest addition installation to verify it went through, and then rebooted afterward? If you're missing some of the build environment it will fail and unless you're paying attention to the output you might not notice.

First, delete all the files that begin with a . in your home folder, this will clear the settings from xdiagnose and make things usable again. After that, install the Guest Additions. You will likely need to install the kernel headers before you do this. After that, just resize the window to change the screen resolution.

I don't want to sound like I'm splitting hairs, but maybe I am: have you installed Guest Additions in the virtual machine by going to the VB Menu-->Devices-->Insert Guest Additions Disk Image, mounting the Disk Image, and running the install routine?

Not to pick nits, but saying that you have "used" guest additions does not answer that question directly.