recent update breaks video in virtualbox
 

Just installed Slackware currentin Oracle VM from the latest Alien Bob iso image (current Plasma5 from 04-23-2018)

at this point video works fine for few minutes but some artifacts appear (black line on the top and black VM menu).
next I have run update (no customization at this point) hoping that this may fix the issue:
slackpg update/upgrade-all
and after reboot video is broken (black screen)

Have the same problem here, not sure if the problem lies with virtualbox or Slackware. Since my -current VM is just a throw away VM, I haven't looked into fixing it yet.

See this thread: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...nt-4175631830/

Its not really a fix, but blacklisting the vboxvideo module will let you start X.

and reboot.

I guess the problem is with VirtualBox?

Sorry for the late response.
Oracle VirtualBox is just broken in Slackware. Not only video but also vboxsf does not work (because video is broken). Solution that you provide will not fix all issues.

Thank you though

Oracle VirtualBox is not just broken. Works for me.

Host: Slackware64-current, with Alien Bob's Ktown
Guest: slackware64-live-plasma5-current.iso 04-23-2018

VirtualBox installed using VirtualBox-5.2.12-122591-Linux_amd64.run

It's fine for me now too, not sure what I did. I just reverted a snapshot then updated using slackpkg. All good now.

Whoud be nice to know what you did?

@chrisretusn
I don't have any issues with fresh installation of Slackware-current-plasma and virtualbox. However if I run slackpkg update after fresh installation, it breaks video

I literally just reverted a snapshot from a fresh install from about 3 weeks ago then updated. The only thing I do differently is remove the xorg vbox video package.

ok
just compiled kernel 4.14.34 and virtual box works
kernel 4.14.35 (default in current Plasma5 from 04-23-2018) works too

Now when I installed 4.17.2 virtual box video worked partially (fixed resolution, unable to change) and vboxsf would not load at all.

when running slackpkg update/upgrade-all, kernel is upgraded to 4.14.50 and this kills video.
So I will run update and leave kernel out.

Hopefully problem solved.

I guess I should also mention I am using Virtualbox 5.1.38. I am avoiding the 5.2 branch because it has given me nothing but trouble.

Well I spoke to soon or I never actually updated. but I just did another upgrade-all and noticed that a lot of packages from the last update didn't install. Either way, it is not working, I'll figure this out later, my -current VM is very low priority.

I have 2 VMs with Slackware64-current (up-to-date with slackpkg) with the following result:
Virtualbox 5.2.6 - X is working fine.
Virtualbox 5.2.12 - X is NOT working.

I think it's something related to the last Virtualbox tools version then. I'll upgrade Vbox 5.2.6 and see if it breaks...

VirtualBox is definitely broken after upgrade:
1) full install (no modifications), after full system upgrade = broken video
2) did not upgrade kernel (due to possible incompatibility between latest kernel and latest VirtualBox) = broken video
2a) I used custom kernel 4.16.8. This kernel works with VirtualBox before upgrade.
3) downgraded VB to 5.2.6 after system upgrade = broken video
4) removed xf-video-vboxvideo, after system upgrade = broken video

so upgrading Slackware to the latest current kills video (at least). Without an upgrade, abd keeping current Plasma5 from 04-23-2018 VirtualBox works.


Conclusion: for now can't upgrade Slackware to the latest current in virtualbox

I'm having the same issue. I'm guessing it's a bug with VirtualBox not playing nice with xorg-server 1.20 with the vboxvideo kernel module loaded. I've tried both the one shipped with the stock -current 4.14.52 on x86_64, and I've tried building the module manually from the vbox guest additions ISO. Neither works.

Thankfully, if you blacklist the 'vboxvideo' kernel driver, as others have suggested, the vboxvideo_drv.so *Xorg* driver will kick in and does work quite well. It doesn't get my resolution right on fluxbox without compositing enabled, but a single xrandr command tidies that up just fine.

I also tried under 4.4.x which was left hanging from my 14.2 install, even after rebuilding the modules, and that didn't work either, which is why I'm thinking it's an issue with VirtualBox and the new Xorg as opposed to the new kernel.

Have you tried any of the test or development builds of VirtualBox? They might have fixes that haven't made it to the stable releases yet.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds