The Unthingable

VirtualBox clipboard sharing in guest xterm

Per `default installations instructions`_ the clipboard integration does not work in guest xterm. The problem with xterm is that by default it uses a different internal clipboard.

To fix, add the following to ~/.Xdefaults:

XTerm*selectToClipboard:true
XTerm.vt100.translations: #override \n\
            Shift : ignore() \n\
            Shift   : insert-selection(CLIPBOARD,PRIMARY,CUT_BUFFER0)\n\

`original solution`_

instructions: http://unthingable.eat-up.org/?p=3 .. _original solution: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=118929

Installing VirtualBox 3 (PUEL) on CentOS 5 (rackspace slicehost)

is impossible.

Followed the `rpm installation instructions`_. Installed "Development Libraries", " Development Tools", gcc-devel, etc.., and kernel headers from the repo:

# yum install kernel_headers
# export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.18-164.10.1.el5-x86_64
# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
    ...  [FAIL]
# uname -r
2.6.31-302-rs

Version mistmatch. Damn.

Ah, here we go: `proper headers`_ — yay! Wait, what? /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-302-ec2/scripts/mod/modpost requires GLIBC_2.8, and we can't mess with glibc or the kernel. Attempted building and installing glibc 2.8 on the side, no go. Damn.

Ok, it's been a day now, we get resourceful and desperate:

# cd /usr/src/linux
# rm srcipts/mod/modpost
# make scripts
# ldd scripts/mod/modpost
(no problem, yay)
# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
    ... [ DONE! ]

Finally! OK, let's fire it up:

# VBoxHeadless

!!Assertion Failed!!
Expression: GipMapReq.u.Out.pGipR3->u32Magic == SUPGLOBALINFOPAGE_MAGIC
Location  : /home/vbox/vbox-3.0.12/src/VBox/HostDrivers/Support/SUPLib.cpp(321) int SUPR3Init(PSUPDRVSESSION*)
Trace/breakpoint trap

Fuck it. I give up.

So, to recap: after a full day of installing headers, installing hacked headers, building glibc 2.8 and a futile attempt to get vboxdrv to build with that, hacking modpost, trying two different PUEL versions (3.0 and 3.1) we still get nothing.

VBox OSE won't compile because of failing some version dependency checks and CentOS repo is hopelessly out of date. Tried with multiple different versions of vbox, ultimately it's too much pain.

Another possibility worth exploring is bringing up the image in vmware or xen.

instructions: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads .. _proper headers: http://cloudservers.rackspacecloud.com/index.php/Installing_Kernel_Headers_for_2.6.31-302-rs

Installing Archlinux on VirtualBox (on 10.6.2)

After a couple of days of digging through outdated and conflicting documentation, I finally figured out the proper steps. Then jamesconway from #vbox put it all nicely together:

As root:
    1. pacman -Syu xorg
        install entire group (is everything actually required?)
    2. pacman -S kernel26-headers gcc make
    3. Install guest additions
    4. X -configure
    5. change the mouse driver from "mouse" to "vboxmouse" in /root/xorg.conf.new
    6. mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
    7. add hal to DAEMONS in rc.conf
        rc.vboxadd is not required because it is added to /etc/rc.local automatically
Not as root:
    8. add /usr/bin/VBoxClient-all to the top of ~/.xinitrc (even if it does not exist)

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Running_Arch_Linux_as_a_guest