Oracle Virtual Box installation problems

Above is the line that solved it.
But it doesn’t automatically find it, I have to go to Devices and force it.

We are running two different versions, I have VB 5.2.18… so our screens are a little different.
But more importantly if I remember right under 16.04 and your version it found the USB drives just fine.
I have either missed something else or they have a bug in the VB software.

Are you running 18.04 or 16.04, just curious?
I don’t remember it being this hard in 16.04 and VB 5.1.38

Thanks so much for hanging in there with me, Fred

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Currently I'm running Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS with VirtualBox 5.1.38 and some guests in it - Windows 7 and UM 18.04 LTS.

You can create USB device filter to force USB-flash connection to the guest:

  1. Open machine settings with <Ctrl+S>, select USB tab

  2. Click on USB add button

  3. Select your USB flash from drop-down menu:

  4. Ensure that it is added to the list:

    and click OK.

  5. As the result you will not need to go to Devices to check flash manually. It will be connected automatically on VM start.

Note: you can always remove USB filter with corresponding button () in the settings.

@Norbert_X

Just tried that and from what I can tell if you plug in a new USB device you have to do the device setting trick.
No that anything is wrong with that, but am I correct?
I like to understand how things work.

Thanks, Fred

Hallo fey 42

No, it does not look familiar.

My options did not include "Software Boutique (default)" - see below:

Good luck...

@alpinejohn

Ah, ah the options are different.
You are running 18.04, right?
What version of VB are you running?
I have 5.2.18, maybe this is the problem.

Thanks, Fred

@alpinejohn

I just woke up :slight_smile: you are downloading the same version as me.
You are using 18.04 and pulling down 5.2.18.

I accepted the default instead of checking to see what else was available. Duh (forehead slap).
I worked through the hard way and have it solved now.

Thanks, Fred

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To install Guest Sdditions inside a Windows VM, just “insert” the guest additions ISO from the “Devices” menu. Then install in the manner you would normally install in Windows. Then reboot the VM.

The most efficient way I have found to install Guest Additions inside any Debian based VM is the following:

  1. Boot and log-in to the vm

  2. Open a terminal and type

sudo apt-get install dkms

(If it is already installed, you will get a message telling you so. In which case, fine).

  1. Insert the guest additions ISO via the “devices” menu

  2. Ignore/close any device dialog boxes/menus that come up on screen

  3. Open the file manager and navigate to the guest additions iso. Once, there, copy the address out of the address bar.

  4. Open a terminal and type “cd” followed by the pasted contents (to paste into a terminal, press CTRL/SHIFT/v) of the clipboard and then press “Enter”. You will now be inside the guest additions folder. Type “ls” and you will see the contents of the folder. You will note one of the files is called “VBoxLinuxAdditions.run”.

  5. Type the following:

sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

and follow any instructions

  1. Reboot the VM

@stevecook172001

I only have Caja and I don't see an address bar.
Also you talk about an ISO, don't have that either.
I'm probably being dense.

My main problem now is that the VB doesn't really resize quite right. Windows only offers 4:3 settings.
I might be to picky, but I thought the older VB sized properly. I didn't use it that much so I might be mistaken.

Thanks to everybody for getting me to this point.
I am trying very hard to convert.

Fred

Hallo fey42

You may not know this… so I will assume that you don’t.

Caja can display the “path” to the open directory (folder) in two ways. The first is often called “breadcrumbs” - this is what your screenshot shows [fred] [Downloads] [OracleVB].

The second shows the path as you would see it in a terminal e.g. /fred/Downloads/OracleVB. To make this second style visible simply click on the “pencil” icon at the left hand side of the “breadcrumbs”-style path. In fact by repeatedly clicking on the pencil icon you can toggle back and forth between the two display styles.

If you already knew this my appologies, otherwise I hope it has helped you.

If you want to find out more about Caja you may find this resource useful:

Hope it helps. :slight_smile:

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Fred. I was referring to the file manager inside the running VM.

See Alpine John’s explanation of how to show the address bar.

The way to “insert” the guest additions ISO into the VM virtual CD drive is by going to the virtual box menu of the running VM and selecting Devices/Insert Guest Additions CD Image

@alpinejohn
You were absolutely correct. I searched every menu item, didn’t click on the obscure Pencil.

Thanks again for saving this old man.

Cheers, Fred

@stevecook172001

Between you and AlpineJohn you two have me straightened out.
I had no idea the the Extension Pack was an ISO. I was looking for a file with an ISO extension.
Off to my next challenge. :slight_smile:

Thanks some more, Fred

Help, I just flipped a switch that when VM is running it removes the USB notification from the BB screen.
I can’t find what switch it was.

Thanks, Fred

Just to note Fred:

The “Extension pack” is different to the “Guest additions”.

The extension pack is an update to Virtualbox itself and is installed on the host. It can come in a variety of installation formats depending on which distro you are using.

The guest additions is an update to the installed VM to make things like resolution and external UBS devices work properly with the VM. It is installed inside the VM and typically comes in the form of an “ISO” that is mounted inside the VM. Though, just to complicate matters, most Linux distros also allow a Linux VM to install it from the repos inside a terminal. But, we wont go down that rabbit hole.

@stevecook172001

There are differences between the OVB of 16.04 and 18.04 and that is throwing me for a loop.

It automatically installs the extension pack, but that is not how you get to USB access. You have to install the virtual CD ISO. But what is worse, is that when OVB fires up, it takes the USB away from BB. When OVB shuts down it gives it back.

Nothing happens when I click on "Insert Guest Additions CD" while inside the W7 VM.

If I switch to View Full Screen I get a small screen inside a large black area.

I don't seem to be able to get 16:9 screen resolutions, only 4:3 inside the VM window.

What have I missed?

Thanks, Fred

@stevecook172001

A sanity check proves I was correct. This is a screen shot from 16.04 showing the USB present in both 16.04 and OVB, plus it is a nice 16:9 presentation, not the 4:3 in the last message. (I saved my 16.04 SSD.)

Sometimes, after installing guest additions, the resolution still will not play ball. If that happens, check inside the VM’s own internal resolution settings and set it to one that’s identical to the one you are using on the host.

As for the guest additions not showing up when you insert the virtual CD; have you checked the VM’s file manager to see if it has appeared in the list of drives available?

Finally, have you checked if you are a member of the vboxusers group on the host machine. You do this by going to System/Administration/Users and Groups I think.

When in there, click on the “manage groups” button and double click Vboxusers and see if your username is checked there. If it wasn’t checked and you have subsequently checked it, you will need to log out and back in for it to take effect.

@stevecook172001

Yes, yes and yes. See screen shots.

In the 16.04 with the OVB we used, couple revs back I didn't even touch that setting. It was set to Auto.

What is your thoughts on going backing to that version?
I can find it by swapping drives or it might be in the our discussion when you made all of the videos for me while you were redecorating. :slight_smile:

Off to the sack, check back in morning.
Thanks so much Steve, Fred

@stevecook172001
Is it even possible to install an older version of OVB in 18.04?
I pulled down 5.0.4 and tried to install it, but don’t know what to do about the error messages.

Terminal Dump:
fred@fred-Lenovo-G780:~/Downloads/OracleVB$ ls
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.0.40-115130.vbox-extpack
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.18.vbox-extpack
virtualbox-5.0_5.0.40-115130~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb
virtualbox-5.2_5.2.18-124319~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb

fred@fred-Lenovo-G780:~/Downloads/OracleVB$ sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.0_5.0.40-115130~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package virtualbox-5.0.
(Reading database … 208818 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack virtualbox-5.0_5.0.40-115130~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb …
Unpacking virtualbox-5.0 (5.0.40-115130~Ubuntu~xenial) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of virtualbox-5.0:
virtualbox-5.0 depends on libcurl3 (>= 7.16.2); however:
Package libcurl3 is not installed.
virtualbox-5.0 depends on libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4); however:
Package libpng12-0 is not installed.
virtualbox-5.0 depends on libqt4-opengl (>= 4:4.7.2); however:
Package libqt4-opengl is not installed.
virtualbox-5.0 depends on libvpx3 (>= 1.5.0); however:
Package libvpx3 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package virtualbox-5.0 (–install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for systemd (237-3ubuntu10.3) …
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-20) …
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) …
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.9-2) …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-1ubuntu3.18.04.1) …
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3+18.04.20180207.2-0ubuntu1) …
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index…
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.60ubuntu1) …
Errors were encountered while processing:
virtualbox-5.0
fred@fred-Lenovo-G780:~/Downloads/OracleVB$

Solved the screen resolution problem. For some reason it was not pointing to the proper guest additions.iso.
Followed these instructions from the Oracle VB web site: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html

"If you prefer to mount the additions manually, you can perform the following steps:

Start the virtual machine in which you have installed Windows.

Select "Mount CD/DVD-ROM" from the "Devices" menu in the virtual machine's menu bar and then "CD/DVD-ROM image". This brings up the Virtual Media Manager described in Section 5.3, “The Virtual Media Manager”.

In the Virtual Media Manager, press the "Add" button and browse your host file system for the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file:

    On a Windows host, you can find this file in the VirtualBox installation directory (usually under C:\Program files\Oracle\VirtualBox )."

Off to wrestle with the USB problem of Oracle VB stealing it from 18.04. :slight_smile:

Thanks everybody, sorry for my confusion, Fred

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