Debian – VirtualBox virtual machine – Debian stable (Lenny) has higher screen resolution than the monitor

debianvirtualbox

I installed debian in vm in virtualbox and it has 1280×1024 resolution, while physical screen is 1024×768… So I'm getting scrollable virtualbox window and I have to scroll it. It's pretty hard to work on it. I tried:

  • Change resolution in gnome… There's no option to choose resolution (just window with blank buttons)
  • Edit xorg.conf… xorg.conf is blank
  • I googled and found out that it's normal for xorg.conf to be blank in this version and that I can use xrandr. I tried xrandr -s 1024×768… I got "size 1024×768 not found in available modes"
  • sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg doesn't do anything. It only lets me to select keyboard layout and that's all. No xorg.conf is created.
  • I turned off X and tried X -configure but I got completely blank black screen so I restarted vm. After restarting it I looked into xorg.conf and it's still blank.

Any ideas?

Best Answer

I had same problem than you. I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf with:

Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller" Monitor "Monitor genérico" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Modes "1024x768" EndSubSection EndSection

And restarted X server using CTRL+ALT+BackSpace (or from initial display botom).

The only one display conf that It works is 1024x768, when I'm using 1280x800 in windows XP. Now, when I select complete display in VirtualBox I get a nice display but black unused spaces on left and right.

Regards, fernando.