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I'm running Debian as host and I fail to get Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora guests to be fullscreen. Changing video memory didn't help.

NOTES:

  • I haven't tried any other distro
  • I didn't create WinXP guest myself
tshepang
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2 Answers2

11

There are a few things that need to be in place. You need to have guest additions installed on the guest OS. You have to have "guest display auto-resize" feature enabled (Host+g toggles this), and then you have to actually activate full-screen mode (Host+f toggles this).

Specifically, on the Debian/Ubuntu guest, run the following (as root):

apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-x11
Community
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Shawn J. Goff
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  • Guest additions not being installed is almost certainly the problem – Falmarri Nov 09 '10 at 19:06
  • Agreed with Falmarri. Most distributions have the guest additions in the repositories, so you can look there first. – Shawn J. Goff Nov 09 '10 at 19:18
  • I followed the instructions and now I got "Disable Guest Display Auto-resize" and it's not selectable. Any ideas? – tshepang Nov 09 '10 at 21:49
  • Are you sure you installed the guest additions correctly? You compiled/installed/restarted? – Falmarri Nov 09 '10 at 23:55
  • @Fal, must I restart the host as well? – tshepang Nov 10 '10 at 01:04
  • Hm. I don't think it's necessary to restart the host, but it might give you peace of mind if you do. Another thing to try would be shutting off the virtual machine (instead of just letting the guest reboot itself). – Shawn J. Goff Nov 10 '10 at 03:30
  • @Tshepang: You shouldn't need to restart the host, but I would try that anyway. – Falmarri Nov 11 '10 at 00:05
  • @Shawn & @Fai, restarted both host (Debian 6.0 - Squeeze) and guest (Ubuntu 10.10), and having VBox guest additions installed on the guest. "Disable Guest Display Auto-resize" is still not selectable. – tshepang Nov 11 '10 at 00:27
  • It's definitely worth going to the project's forums (http://forums.virtualbox.org/) and asking there. They will have in-depth knowledge and experience that is harder to come across in a general community. – Shawn J. Goff Nov 12 '10 at 02:39
  • Wait, are you trying both a debian VM and a ubuntu VM? Or is debian your host and ubuntu your guest? It could be a debian driver thing, I'm not sure. I've only ever run VMs in ubuntu – Falmarri Nov 12 '10 at 17:15
  • @fal Am trying both Debian and Ubuntu VM on Debian host. – tshepang Feb 24 '11 at 05:36
  • @Tshepang: Is this working for you now? If not, what virtualbox packages do you have installed? – Faheem Mitha Jun 16 '11 at 06:10
  • When I followed Shawn Goff's answer and tried apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 I got the package not found error. It DID work with apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11 Apparently the package has been re-named. – Zutalors Jun 04 '17 at 12:18
-1
sudo -i
sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run uninstall

‍reboot‍

sudo -i
sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Baba
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sleepy
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