Increasing Screen Resolution in Ubuntu under VirtualBox
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If you’re like me, you run Windows, but want to try out a new operating system. For me, I decided to try Ubuntu running in a virtual machine via Sun VirtualBox. The installation of Ubuntu in a virtual machine went very smoothly and I had no hiccups whatsoever. However, once Ubuntu was completley installed, I couldn’t increase the screen resolution over 800×600. This was a major inconvenience to me as I couldn’t use full screen or “Seamless” mode. After digging through the web I found a solution and thought that I’d share it to prevent others’ struggles.
First, go to the “Devices” menu and choose “Install Guest Additions”. This should mount a CD in Ubuntu. Next, open up a terminal window and type the following commands:
cd /media/cdrom0(This changes the directory to the CD drive. There is a space after cd)
dir(This list the files found in the directory.)
sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run(This gives Admin privileges so that the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run file can be installed; you will be prompted for you password. Remember that Linux is case sensitive, so type the exact case you see here.)
Now, restart the virtual machine and the problem should be solved. There are similar procedures for Windows as well, except I don’t believe you need to do anything on the command line. This solved my resolution issues with Ubuntu, and I can now use it flawlessly.
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13 Comments
Pradip
August 5th, 2008
at 11:19am
i tried exactly the same thing that you told , but it doesnt seem to work. Please let me know if there are other solutions
Ely
August 20th, 2008
at 11:59am
Pradip, if you still read this, I tried the same thing and it didn’t work for me. It told me that I needed the build and headers for the kernel. I found this site:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-25258.html
I tried this:
>> uname -r (to find out what kernel you have)
to get the header you can apt-get install them,
>> sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` (where uname-r is your kernel version, without the ‘ ‘)
Now, for the buil, I did this:
>> sudo apt-get install build-essential
After that, I tried what was on this site, worked, rebooted the VM, and it WORKED! Hope it works for you, too!
Guy Wlalters
August 21st, 2008
at 1:34pm
It worked just fine for me. Thanks!
In my case it wasn’t necessary to type sh
just I typed sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run and it started to execute.
Evan Brown
August 23rd, 2008
at 7:27am
This is exactly the information that I was looking for. Thanks for sharing it!
conjuror
August 30th, 2008
at 12:19pm
Ethan, these directions were exactly what I needed. Thanks so much for this guide. Huge help!
Best Regards,
-Conjuror
Shareen
September 19th, 2008
at 10:53am
It said ‘Detected unsupported x-86 environment’ and did not install after i did $ sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxadditions-x86.run
I have a pentium system.
angelsmud
October 25th, 2008
at 9:04am
Thank you, Ethan.
Pradip, if you managed installing the “VBoxLinuxAdditions.run”, you can just go to menu Control->fullscreen mode to enable a full screen resolution.
NeilKiran
November 22nd, 2008
at 7:24pm
Great Information…Exactly What I was looking for…
Thanks a Lot Ethan.
brian
December 29th, 2008
at 4:53pm
Work great just that the exe is called VBoxLinuxadditions-x86.run
Thanks again
Tashi Herzmark
December 30th, 2008
at 9:47am
After I appeneded the terminal cmd with -x86 the install went fine (took me 30 minutes, 3 restarts, 2 ciggarettes to get to 6 seconds of inspecting the file names.) With that my first investigation into linux since madrake in the late 90’s has been fabulous; I’m running dual monitors, one page one landscape and Ultramon coordinating the two. Ubuntu in VB now perfectly fills one and the mouse transits seemlessly between the two OS/monitors. Thank you so much for taking the time Ethan. Cheers!
sgt-me
January 27th, 2009
at 5:21am
nice suggestion. It works!! thanks for the tips.
leinoj
February 3rd, 2009
at 9:18am
Thanks for this guide, it really helped me with my problem. Cheers and keep up this good work
Riyas
February 19th, 2009
at 8:38pm
Really helpful, wish i could write something like this!