raymac46 Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 (edited) I decided to look at a couple of other Linux distros in VirtualBox just for fun. I plan on sticking with Linux Mint on the rails but I have lots of memory in the Linux beast so VBox is the way to go to get a look and feel for other distros. My findings: Ubuntu 15.10 is just as smooth as silk - a great choice if you don't mind the Unity interface. Installs easily, and the Guest Additions run perfectly out of the box to give you the nice wide screen. Korora 23 is supposedly the Fedora based distro that just works - yeah right. Installation is more complicated than Ubuntu and less intuitive. The Guest Additions don't install because Korora's version of Xorg is too advanced for VBox to handle. You have to go into the Terminal, downgrade Xorg to the previous Fedora release version and try the install of the Guest Additions again. After this you get the big screen and a lovely desktop - even with funky Gnome 3. Other desktops are available but I like a walk on the wild side occasionally. Next Fedora and its cousins don't include Chromium in the repos for some reason. I had to download the Chromium browser and its associated libs from another website, head back to the Terminal, install the libraries and then the browser. Oy...everything works now and it was nothing a Linux geek couldn't handle but c'mon guys this is 2016 after all, not 2005. Korora and Fedora have replaced the yum RPM installer with the dnf RPM installer. Go figure. Bottom line - give me the Debian based stuff any time when it comes to VirtualBox. Edited March 10, 2016 by raymac46 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 (edited) Just a small suggestion, If you have time for experimenting, perhaps try Slackware. I have it in Virtualbox myself, and it runs incredibly well, and the Guest Additions installed without a hitch. It's a really good rock solid distro, the only reason I'm not using it as a primary is because it's package management system doesn't handle dependencies automatically, and I need a lot of stuff, and I'm kinda lazy. Edited March 11, 2016 by Dr. J 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Just a small suggestion, If you have time for experimenting, perhaps try Slackware. I have it in Virtualbox myself, and it runs incredibly well, and the Guest Additions installed without a hitch. It's a really good rock solid distro, the only reason I'm not using it as a primary is because it's package management system doesn't handle dependencies automatically, and I need a lot of stuff, and I'm kinda lazy. I actually started on Slackware many moons ago. It is a very solid distro but I eventually moved to Arch because back then, you had to install everything manually. Now there are slackbuilds and other tools which make installing packages a bit easier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 12, 2016 Author Share Posted March 12, 2016 I've played around with Slackware but I like Vector Linux since they package most of what you need and give you a nice looking desktop. I liked Slackware a lot better when SwareT worked with the distro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 I had a brief look at Vector Linux 7.1 as a VBox install and immediately ran into a kernel panic. I probably should download Slackware but I don't want to spend a lot of time and bandwidth getting a DVD only to crash again. Maybe I'll see how Slax runs in VBox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Same kernel panic with Slax so I guess the Linux version of VBox doesn't get along with Slackware. I'll try on a Windows machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 (edited) Well whaddaya know. Vector Linux runs and installs perfectly on a Windows version of VirtualBox, and the Guest Additions installed as well. I have the wide screen and all the bells and whistles. This post comes from Vector Linux as Guest running on a Windows 10 host. Go figure. Now that I think about it I have had problems in the past getting some Linux distros to work on a Linux host, whereas just about all of them work fine if I install them in Windows as the host. Don't know why that is. Edited March 14, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Same kernel panic with Slax so I guess the Linux version of VBox doesn't get along with Slackware. I'll try on a Windows machine. Actually that is not the case as Slackware runs perfectly here: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 (edited) Ah but you have a later version of VBox than I have in Linux Mint. I'll have to try and see if I can install the latest version. Edited March 14, 2016 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Ah but you have a later version of VBox than I have in Linux Mint. I'll have to try and see if I can install the latest version. Perhaps that is the reason although I do not recall having an issue when I installed Slackware. Let us know if that is the reason or not so we can further troubleshoot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 I had a brief look at Vector Linux 7.1 as a VBox install and immediately ran into a kernel panic. I ran into similar problems with PCLinuxOS, Slax, and Slackware as guest systems, but the solution in my case was to enable hardware visualization in the host machine's BIOS. Perhaps that's the same reason it won't work for you on mint. (Windows may have an automatic work-around for this). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Thanks I'll look into that as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Well no luck - still getting the kernel panic with Slax and Vector Linux. I have now got the latest version of VirtualBox for Ubuntu Trusty and since this is an AMD system SVM is enabled in the BIOS. I have selected Linux-Other as my type of distro since Slackware isn't an option. I/O APIC is enabled as is the VT-x / AMD-V in the VBox program. Debian and Fedora based distros work fine. The Windows based VirtualBox is on an Intel machine and Slackware based stuff works OK there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Well no luck - still getting the kernel panic with Slax and Vector Linux. I have now got the latest version of VirtualBox for Ubuntu Trusty and since this is an AMD system SVM is enabled in the BIOS. I have selected Linux-Other as my type of distro since Slackware isn't an option. I/O APIC is enabled as is the VT-x / AMD-V in the VBox program. Debian and Fedora based distros work fine. The Windows based VirtualBox is on an Intel machine and Slackware based stuff works OK there. That is very odd. Let me load up Slax and Vector this even when I get home and I will see it works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 I'm pretty sure it'll work for you as you will have the latest kernel as well. I am running basically Ubuntu 14.04 as Linux Mint has not updated things much with 17.3. I'm not about to risk borking a stable system just so I can run a Slackware virtual setup that works perfectly well under Windows. I'll just wait for the next Linux Mint release. It has to be specifically related to Slackware because Fedora based and Debian based distros load and run fine in VirtualBox as Linux guests. Maybe AMD hardware related too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 I wouldn't think it would be related to the kernel but it could very well be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Apparently this issue was fixed by Oracle once before but it is back again for some of us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Apparently this issue was fixed by Oracle once before but it is back again for some of us. Ah so it's a bug, not a feature... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 I have just downloaded Manjaro which is an Arch based distro and it runs perfectly on my Linux host. So whatever the issue is, it appears to be with Slackware based distros. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 I just have to say that Manjaro is fantastic. It installed without a hitch and even displays correctly (Guest Additions already in place and working.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 I had a brief look at Vector Linux 7.1 as a VBox install and immediately ran into a kernel panic. I probably should download Slackware but I don't want to spend a lot of time and bandwidth getting a DVD only to crash again. Maybe I'll see how Slax runs in VBox. I could not get Slax or Salix to boot/run/install on a Dell 4700 recently but Vector installed and is running just fine, I have no idea why that is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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