solved...Virtual machine outsmarts me

[rumpus]

HP laptop with 173 cinnamon and win8.1 running. I installed vbox 5.0 with the extension pack in windows.
Followed instructions and installed 17.3 xfce 32 bit in the box. After the install I restarted the machine,
opened vbox, and xfce is listed in the panel. I clicked on the green start arrow and it gives me a menu
bar on the top of the screen and a 1/4 sized black box that has mint@mint( symbol I don't have) $...

When I put the pointer in the black square the pointer changes to a circle, but not spinning.
The menu bar is working, but I have no idea of what to change to make xfce run.

This is the closest I have come to make a virtual machine work and I don't want to give up now,
Help please......rumpus

[Mr.October]

HP laptop with 173 cinnamon and win8.1 running. I installed vbox 5.0 with the extension pack in windows.
Followed instructions and installed 17.3 xfce 32 bit in the box. After the install I restarted the machine,
opened vbox, and xfce is listed in the panel. I clicked on the green start arrow and it gives me a menu
bar on the top of the screen and a 1/4 sized black box that has mint@mint( symbol I don't have) $...

When I put the pointer in the black square the pointer changes to a circle, but not spinning.
The menu bar is working, but I have no idea of what to change to make xfce run.

This is the closest I have come to make a virtual machine work and I don't want to give up now,
Help please......rumpus

Why rebooting after setting up XFCE in Virtualbox? Is this a Windows thing?
You write

Code: Select all

After the install I restarted the machine, 
opened vbox, and xfce is listed in the panel. I clicked on the green start arrow and it gives me a menu
bar on the top of the screen and a 1/4 sized black box that has       mint@mint( symbol I don't have) $...

Can you post a screenshot of that? Before clicking the green arrow, I do assume you pointed to the Mint installation to make sure you start that one, right?

[rumpus]

Hello Mr. Oct. thanks for the reply.
After the Linux install he screen states changes made to the program will be lost until after restart. Do you want to restart now?
Or something to that effect. I have always restarted after a normal instell and all was well.

The vm is on another computer and when I attempt to open Xfce, the network is lost, I can't move the screenshot from the box.
One would think that someone that has lived as many years as I have should be able to master this small task, but it isn't so.
I can catch bass with more expertise than configuring a computer.....r

[Mr.October]

The message to restart did that come form the Linux installation, or was it a Windows message? Yes, after installing an OS like Mint from within a live DVD it is normal to do a restart of the virtual machine to make use of the installed version instead of staying in the livedvd version. It does however not mean to reboot Windows, your host system.

You use Virtualbox. Where did you get it, from the Mint repositories or did you download and install it from the Virtualbox website?
After installing VB you also need to install the extension pack belonging to the version of VB you have installed. Did you do that?
Then you can start setting up a virtual machine like Mint XFCE. How did you do that, what did you do to set it up?
I know it may sound childish but please write down the steps one by one to setup the VM.
I've got a feeling you skipped (one or more) steps.

[Cosmo.]

The vm is on another computer and when I attempt to open Xfce, the network is lost, I can't move the screenshot from the box.

I think the first part of the quote leads to the origin of the problem: Do you say, that the VM is stored on a place, that is not a partition on your host? Where is it? And why?
Further more please explain, what you mean exactly with "the network gets lost when you open (= start?) the xfce VM.

The last part of the quote is something, that I do not understand at all: "can't move the screenshot from the box".

Further question: Is this actually VB 5.0, not 5.0.16?
Does the version of the extension pack exactly match?
@Mr. October: As the host is Windows, we can exclude the possibility, that it comes from any Linux repositories.

[rumpus]

Hi Cosmo
I'm probably not explaining very well and I know it's difficult to help without good info.
The vbox is on my laptop and I am using my desktop to get to the forum.
When I boot into windows and open vbox I can click on the green start arrow and Xfce starts a new window.
with a black square in the middle. I can open file, settings, view, etc. from the menu bar at the top.
When I select screen shot, it just saves it and I can't move it anywhere.

The vbox is 5.0 and the extension pack is correct. I downloaded it from oracle web site.

This isn't a real important thing, just learning for me, so please don't spend much of your time on it.
...r

[Mr.October]

@Mr. October: As the host is Windows, we can exclude the possibility, that it comes from any Linux repositories.

Oops!!!

[Habitual]

When I boot into windows and open vbox I can click on the green start arrow and Xfce starts a new window.
with a black square in the middle. I can open file, settings, view, etc. from the menu bar at the top.
When I select screen shot, it just saves it and I can't move it anywhere.

I think you misunderstood the capabilities of a Virtual guest.
You can screen shoot and save but you can't just drag it off to the Windows host from the Virtual guest.

Screen shots in the guest will have to be manually (or configured via a "share") copied to the Windows host.

[rumpus]

good morning Habitual..
I never got a vm running yet. I don't know how they work so I thought I would learn.
I have never seen a vm working and don't know anyone that has ever tried to install one.
But I'll get this one working even if I have to install it in Linux.......r

[Cosmo.]

At first replace VB 5.0 with VB 5.0.16. It does not make sense to investigate in a software, which has been in the first version more or less in (unofficial) beta state. Then update the extension pack to the same version. After that we will see, what happens.

[rumpus]

OK Cosmo
should I install over 5.0 or remove 5.0 first?...r

[Mr.October]

!rumpus:
After installing VB you also need to install the extension pack belonging to the version of VB you have installed. Did you do that?
Then you can start setting up a virtual machine like Mint XFCE. How did you do that, what did you do to set it up?
I know it may sound childish but please write down the steps one by one to setup the VM.
I've got a feeling you skipped (one or more) steps.

Please tell us how you setup the VM. As I wrote before it looks like you missed something.

[Cosmo.]

Usually installing on top of a previous version in case of a minor version change is OK.

[rumpus]

I don't know how, but this is from the xfce vm. Cosmo..when I checked I found the vbox is 5.0.16 and the extension pack is correct.
I put the dvd with Linux on it with the intention to reinstall it, opened vbox and just for kicks clicked the start arrow in the vbox menu.
This made the disc drive start. Never did that before. But it loaded xfce and it is now running as live session, I think. The xfce desktop
still has the install icon on it.
Is there a boot menu for vbox? If so, perhaps it's set to boot from dvd?

I'm going to turn it off and see what happens.....r

[Habitual]

I don't know how, but this is from the xfce vm. Cosmo..when I checked I found the vbox is 5.0.16 and the extension pack is correct.
I put the dvd with Linux on it with the intention to reinstall it, opened vbox and just for kicks clicked the start arrow in the vbox menu.
This made the disc drive start. Never did that before. But it loaded xfce and it is now running as live session, I think. The xfce desktop
still has the install icon on it.
Is there a boot menu for vbox? If so, perhaps it's set to boot from dvd?

I'm going to turn it off and see what happens.....r

I suggest you download an .iso file of any OS you want to Virtualize in Virtualbox.
VBox can boot directly from ISO files to install from those same ISO files.

See also https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ox+install

[Cosmo.]

I can only make guesses, what has happened: It seems, that you have attached the physical optical drive of the host to the VM. CD / DVD drive have in VMs always priority before the (virtual) hard drive (if the user does not change this setting). When you now started the VM out of the given reasons the live system from the dvd got launched. So far so good.

From the distance it seems, that there went something wrong, when you installed Mint in the VM. Out of this reason the launched VM did hang with what you described at the beginning.

As you was never able to start the installed Mint system you have nothing to loose. Simply execute the installer again and let it do its thing.

We can also try to investigate for the reason of the first failed installation. For this a few questions:
When you created the VM in the VB Manager, which Linux distro did you choose? How much RAM did you give the VM and how much RAM has the host?
Most important: How big did you set the size of the virtual hard drive (my first verdict for the cause of the problem)?

[rumpus]

Thanks to all who offered advice to install a virtual machine. XFCE is now running in the vbox.
Sadly I don't know what was different with the last attempt so I didn't learn much.
I used all of the default settings offered by vbox for ram, disc space, etc., and it installed almost
like on a real machine. It does run a bit slower.
Once again...thank you...r