How to make a distro be fullscreen on VirtualBox?

debian virtualbox

29,285

There are a few things that need to be in place. You need to have guest additions installed on the guest OS. You have to have "guest display auto-resize" feature enabled (Host+g toggles this), and then you have to actually activate full-screen mode (Host+f toggles this).

Specifically, on the Debian/Ubuntu guest, run the following (as root):

apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-x11

29,285

tshepang

I do software development for a living and as a hobby. My favorite language is Rust, and I've used Python much in the past. My OS of choice is Debian.

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

tshepang over 1 year
I'm running Debian as host and I fail to get Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora guests to be fullscreen. Changing video memory didn't help.

NOTES:
- I haven't tried any other distro
- I didn't create WinXP guest myself
Falmarri over 13 years

Guest additions not being installed is almost certainly the problem
Shawn J. Goff over 13 years

Agreed with Falmarri. Most distributions have the guest additions in the repositories, so you can look there first.
tshepang over 13 years

I followed the instructions and now I got "Disable Guest Display Auto-resize" and it's not selectable. Any ideas?
Falmarri over 13 years

Are you sure you installed the guest additions correctly? You compiled/installed/restarted?
tshepang over 13 years

@Fal, must I restart the host as well?
Shawn J. Goff over 13 years

Hm. I don't think it's necessary to restart the host, but it might give you peace of mind if you do. Another thing to try would be shutting off the virtual machine (instead of just letting the guest reboot itself).
Falmarri over 13 years

@Tshepang: You shouldn't need to restart the host, but I would try that anyway.
tshepang over 13 years

@Shawn & @Fai, restarted both host (Debian 6.0 - Squeeze) and guest (Ubuntu 10.10), and having VBox guest additions installed on the guest. "Disable Guest Display Auto-resize" is still not selectable.
Shawn J. Goff over 13 years

It's definitely worth going to the project's forums (forums.virtualbox.org) and asking there. They will have in-depth knowledge and experience that is harder to come across in a general community.
Falmarri over 13 years

Wait, are you trying both a debian VM and a ubuntu VM? Or is debian your host and ubuntu your guest? It could be a debian driver thing, I'm not sure. I've only ever run VMs in ubuntu
tshepang about 13 years

@fal Am trying both Debian and Ubuntu VM on Debian host.
Alen Milakovic almost 13 years

@Tshepang: Is this working for you now? If not, what virtualbox packages do you have installed?
G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' almost 9 years

What CD is that on?
eyoung100 almost 9 years

This question is already answered and with it's age you need to provide more detail. I'm recommending deletion 4 now.
Zutalors almost 7 years

When I followed Shawn Goff's answer and tried apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 I got the package not found error. It DID work with apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11 Apparently the package has been re-named.