Virtualbox Guest
Contents |
[edit] Installation
Installing Gentoo as a VirtualBox guest OS is not that much different from the standard installation. Proceed as recommended in the Installation Handbook, with the following modifications.
[edit] Configuring the Compile Options
If you are planning to use X, add the following lines to /etc/make.conf:
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev" VIDEO_CARDS="virtualbox"
Use the settings above regardless of your host machine's actual hardware.
Follow the rest of the section as written in the handbook.
One important note is "symmetric multi-processing support" and "SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support)" are needed for VM's that have more than one core assigned
[edit] Configuring the Kernel
The important settings for a kernel that runs under VirtualBox are:
| Linux Kernel Configuration: VirtualBox-friendly kernel |
Processor type and features --->
[*] Tickless System (Dynamic Ticks)
[ ] High Resolution Timer Support
[X] Symmetric multi-processing support (keep this enabled for multiple cores, too!)
Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible) --->
[ ] Machine Check / overheating reporting
[X] SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support (This too, for i7's)
Power management and ACPI options --->
[*] Power Management support
[ ] Suspend to RAM and standby
[ ] Hibernation (aka 'suspend to disk')
[*] ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support --->
Device Drivers --->
< > ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
<*> Serial ATA and Parallel ATA drivers
<*> AHCI SATA Support
[*] ATA SFF support
<*> Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4 PATA/SATA support
[*] Network device support --->
[*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit) --->
[*] EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers
<M> AMD PCnet32 PCI support
[*] Ethernet (1000 Mbit) --->
<M> Intel(R) PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet support
[ ] Ethernet (10000 Mbit) --->
Input device support --->
[*] Mice --->
<*> PS/2 mouse
Graphics support --->
<*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) --->
< > all options can be empty
<M> Sound card support --->
<M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture --->
[*] PCI sound Devices --->
<M> Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller
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You will also need some of the more common options under "Device Drivers ---> SCI device Support" (if you wind up having to debug). For instance, check "sata_sil" under serial-ATA (device driver), as compiled into kernel.
Additionally, there appears to be a problem in some configurations. Apparently, the snd-intel8x0 module doesn't detect the VirtualBox emulated AC97 chip clock correctly, assumes 96 kHz, and the emulated chip has an unusually low clock of 48 kHz. If you experience sound reproduction one octave lower than you expected and at half normal speed, then, add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf:
options snd-intel8x0 ac97_clock=48000
[edit] Configuring your System
You should be able to continue with the handbook installation from this point without any problems.
[edit] Guest Additions
The VirtualBox guest additions provide seamless mouse integration, higher screen resolutions and other advanced features.
Emerge the guest additions and drivers:
This will emerge the virtualbox drivers.
Make sure use the newest version of virtual-box-additions:
At this point the required packages are installed and need to be configured.
Add guest additions to the default runlevel and enable them for the current session:
Xorg configuration file is not necessary with >=xorg-server-1.8, udev, and evdev. You can safely remove it if you have one:
Add unprivileged users to vboxguest group. This will allow automatic resize and seamless mode:
