Ubuntu 8.10 as a guest in VirtualBox

Though I only use Debian on all my machines, I like playing with new Ubuntu releases, just in case I have to set it up on someone else’s machine. I use VirtualBox for testing.

When trying the upcoming new Ubuntu 8.10 release, and after installing the VirtualBox clients on the guest, I had the following issues:

First, the video driver refused to give me more than a 800×600 resolution. This can be worked around by adding the following lines in the xorg.conf file:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Driver          "vboxvideo"
EndSection
 
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Configured Monitor"
EndSection
 
Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
        Device          "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

A second issue was the mouse grabbing which did not work at all. Adding the following lines in the xorg.conf file has fixed the issue:

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier   "Configured Mouse"
   Driver       "vboxmouse"
   Option       "CorePointer"
EndSection

You need to restart Xorg after amending the file so that the changes are taken into account.

Both issues are due to the fact Xorg 7.4 is supposed to automagically recognize the hardware – but it seems like this is not always the case (or it refuses to use it, not sure what’s happening in that particular case).