Mageia VirtualBox 4.1.4 - How to install Guest Additions

[Cracker42]

Hello, I'm new to Mageia so when it came time to install it I wanted to use VirtualBox 4.1.4 running in my Windows 7 64-bit Host OS. No problem, I just created a new VM, told VB to use Linux and Mandriva, set my memory size, disk, video memory size, sound, etc. as normal for VBox. I have an Intel Core-i5 660 cpu so I can use 2 cpu's and turn on the PAE/NX option and turn on Enable 3D Acceleration. Finally I deleted the default IDE DVD and created a new SATA DVD and told VirtualBox to mount my Mageia ISO image, went back to the System setting and changed the boot order so the DVD with the ISO image is the first boot device. This is all normal for VirtualBox and I'd done this for Ubuntu 11.04 and Linux Mint 11. I double-clicked the new VM and the Live Boot CD (ISO image) of Mageia ran smoothly and perfectly. Great, I'm immediately liking the KDE desktop look and so I ran the installer, answered all questions and configuration options/choices, watched it install, and I'm ready to reboot. I do a shutdown, go back to the VirtualBox System settings to set the hard drive as the first boot device, restart, answer another few questions, and voila, I have Mageia up and running in VirtualBox 4.1.4 (lastest version as I write this) at the default 1024 x 768 resolution.

At this point I'm really liking Mageia as the install was a breeze and easier to do than my favorite Linux Mint 11 VB install. Ok, on to step 2 to install the VB Guest Additions so I can get full screen on my 1920 x 1080 HD monitor, plus all the other items it provides to the guest OS. I go to the Virtual Box Devices drop down menu, choose Install Guest Additions..., wait until that ISO is mounted, double-click my Home Folder, then chose VBOXADDITIONS_4.1.3_74291 from the left column to see the contents. Again this is all normal stuff for a VB install. First new (to me anyway) item was that when I right-clicked on an empty space below the files to get a menu I needed to point to Actions to get a submenu that has an Open Terminal Here choice so I could get a terminal console at the VB guest additions files location. Then I ran the SU command to get root access to be able to run the script to install the guest additions. At this point ls -l shows:

dr-xr-xr-x 3 mark mark 2048 Oct 3 10:42 32Bit/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 mark mark 2048 Oct 3 10:42 64Bit/
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 647 Aug 16 16:00 AUTORUN.INF*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 6966 Oct 3 10:37 autorun.sh*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 5523 Oct 3 10:37 runasroot.sh*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 7249355 Oct 3 10:40 VBoxLinuxAdditions.run*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 14244352 Oct 3 11:37 VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 13110896 Oct 3 10:27 VBoxWindowsAdditions-amd64.exe*
-r-xr-xr-x 2 mark mark 278832 Oct 3 10:20 VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 mark mark 7288872 Oct 3 10:21 VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86.exe*

Great, now I just need to run VBoxLinuxAdditions.run, let Mageia execute the script to create the VB guest additions as I did for Ubuntu 11.04 and Linux Mint 11, restart Mageia, and start exploring the new features. Wam, bam, and what ... Mageia says it can't find the MAKE utility. Ok, off I go to the Control Center, select Install & Remove Software, Find MAKE, get no results, scratch head, figure out that since MAKE is a command line utility I must select ALL instead of the default "Packages with GUI", find MAKE again, and now I can select and install it. Good, back to the terminal console, rerun VBoxLinuxAdditions.run, and I got new errors. Long story short, after several hours of Googling I finally got the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run to complete with no errors. A final restart of Mageia and I have a full screen desktop. Whew! Here is what must be installed to get Virtual Box Guest Additions to install successfully:

Install the following from the Control Center: (select "All" instead of "Packages with GUI")
make
syslinux-devel
dkms

Make sure you answer yes to allow all the other dependencies to install. With these installed you can run VBoxLinuxAdditions.run and it will complete with no errors. After restarting Mageia you can press ALT-F to get full screen and on my 1920 x 1080 HD LCD monitor the KDE desktop is beautiful (even better than my Linux Mint 11 with the Gnome desktop).

I've noticed that in System Settings, Display and Monitor it shows that I'm using "VBOX0 (Connected)" as the display driver which makes sense, and that the Size is "disabled". When I'm not running in full screen mode it uses a 1904 x 960 (Auto) resolution and that also makes sense as on my HD monitor VB subtracts the border width horizontally and vertically VB is subtracting the title bar at the top, the VB drop down menu bar, the VB status bar at the bottom, and I have my Windows 7 task bar showing so on my setup that leaves me with 960 pixels for the Mageia desktop.

I installed Compiz Fusion and the "wobbly" effects when moving a window around works smoothly (it better as I have my Core i5 660 cranked up to 3.75 GHz), the "Cube" rotating effect is also providing a nice visual effect when I pick a different desktop from the 4 available.

I'm still learning as I go but all in all Mageia Linux is a winner.

[doktor5000]

If you use Virtualbox PUEL, you just need to install task-c++-devel and kernel-devel and then run the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run script.
Easy as that. But yes, the selection "packages with "GUI"" eventually does more harm than it helps, you got a point there.

[Cracker42]

Mageia 2 requires the following be installed with Software Management:

make
syslinux-devel

now while still in Software Management type in dkms-v and the search will show 3 items:

dkms-vboxadditions
dkms-vhba
dkms-virtualbox

select dkms-vboxadditions and dkms-virtualbox and optionally dkms-vhba if you have any SCSI devices that you need to access from your host OS. Apply these, run the Dolphin file manager, select VBOXADDITIONS at the bottom of the left side (make sure you have mounted the VB guest additions), right click on empty space below the VB files to get the context menu, point at Actions, and then click Open Terminal Here. From this console you can su to switch to super user (root), and then when you type
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run {enter} the VB extentions will compile and install without errors.

[mithion]

Question. Do you still need to install the guest additions from Virtualbox's ISO if you install dkms-virtualbox and dkms-vboxadditions? Or do both of those package include full support to run Mageia as a vbox guest? It's really quite confusing. I'd personally rather use the additions provided by mageia as opposed to those coming from ISO since the packages are consistent with provided distro kernels. Any clarification is appreciated.

[mithion]

Oh I think I sorted it out. The dkms-virtualbox and dkms-vboxadditions are used to automatically recompile oracle provided modules from the ISO when a new kernel updated. The package I was looking for was virtualbox-guest-additions which are the additions packaged by mageia and synchronized with latest kernel.