How do I enable visual effects when running Ubuntu as a Guest machine in VirtualBox? [closed]

Solution 1:

Inside the guest, install the package virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 and restart the VM; that may resolve the issue. X on the guest needs to be aware of the VirtualBox drivers, and as far as I know this is the way to go about that. Versions 2.2 and up should make this functionality seamless, but it's possible there are some bugs in there.

Also, be sure you've allocated plenty of video memory in the VM settings. I gave it a go just now with 128 MB VRAM (which might be excessive) and it worked fine after installing the -x11 package I mentioned. Start high if you can and lower it if you need to until it stops working.

Solution 2:

I thought the 2D and 3D acceleration support for guests was only in the PUEL edition of VirtualBox, and not in the OSE version. (I'm likely wrong about this, I'm much more familiar with the PUEL, not with OSE version of VirtualBox.)

Either way, I'd install the guest additions that come with your exact edition/version of VirtualBox, not what happens to be in Synaptic. Click on Devices->Intall Guest Additions. Once you click on Devices->Install Guest Additions, if that doesn't make the VBox CD image available on your guest desktop, reboot the guest. Once the guest additions show up, here is how I install them:

sudo /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.10_66523/VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run 

If your guest is running the 32-bit version of Ubuntu, you'd instead run the following:

sudo /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.10_66523/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run 

...followed by a reboot of the guest.