Ubuntu 12.04 32 Desktop with Guest Additions reposts graphics unknown -> not a VirtualBox issue

[Emilio]

Hi, my host is windows 7 sp1 64 with Virtualbox 4.3.10 rc93012 and my guest is Ubuntu 12.04 32 Desktop with Guest additions 4.3.10 installed from virtualbox iso per theses instructions ​http://en.ig.ma/notebook/2012/virtualbox-guest-additions-on-ubuntu-server.

Before installing the Guest Additions Ubuntu System Settings -> Details reports Graphics as Oracle vm virtualbox vbe adapter but after installing the Guest Additions it just reports Graphics as Unknown. This always happens no matter whether you have the Oracle VM Virtualbox graphics Card enabled or not from System Settings-> Additional Drivers.

The guest additions are installed and working correctly otherwise

[Michael Thayer]

Isn't this something you should be taking up with Ubuntu?

[Emilio]

Replying to michael:

Isn't this something you should be taking up with Ubuntu?

Ubuntu seems to be reporting a valid graphic driver string before installing the Guest additions but no after maybe it's a change in the guest additions that's not right

[Michael Thayer]

A quick look shows that Ubuntu 12.04 reports "Unknown" when the graphics driver refuses to load (in this case because 3D pass-through is not enabled in the machine settings). Ubuntu 13.10 reports "Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.3, 128 bits)" in this case. When 3D pass-through is activated both report "Chromium" as the graphics driver, from our 3D driver's OpenGL strings. When no specific drivers for the VirtualBox graphics card are installed at all the default VESA driver is used and Ubuntu 12.04 apparently reports the VESA VBE OEM product string - "Oracle VM VirtualBox VBE Adapter" as the graphics driver.

Why do you think that we should be fixing something VirtualBox here, and what do you think we should fix? We have no control over how Ubuntu 12.04 decides what to call the graphics driver.

[Michael Thayer]

To be clear, when I talk about "the graphics driver [refusing] to load" above, I meant the 3D component of the graphics driver. The rest of it loads of course even when 3D pass-through is disabled.

[Emilio]

The only way in my system to get the graphics driver name was by using:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

to report the name which are the same than yours but still got the "Unknown" in the System Settings. After more research I tried installing:

apt-get install mesa-utils

And then I did get the same driver name in both unity_support_test and System Settings. It was always my understanding that the name of the driver was given by the driver itself and not the os

[Michael Thayer]

The name of the driver is given by the driver, but the driver can't force the OS to report it correctly. This looks like a problem with Ubuntu 12.04 which is clearly fixed in Ubuntu 13.10. I hope we agree about that and I will close this ticket.