I’ve been running Ubuntu Linux 10.03 on a VirtualBox VM with the Windows 7 host PC. Works fine. Updated to Ubuntu 10.10 – the Maverick Meekat, restarted the system, and now it comes up in console mode and asks for a user/pass. I give it what I have, and it doesn’t accept it. Hosed. Gee ain’t Linux grand.

Hmmm. Let me try again. Ah, it accepted another username/password, which is not the one in my Keepass database, now that needs maintenance.

GUI

But, now how do I get the Ubuntu gui back. Tried to reinstall the Guest Additions. Nope, even though I do the Devices->Install Guest Additions, I don’t see the CD in /media/cdrom folder.

At the end of this blog post the author has:

The Unixmen’s site has a workaround to the X Window issue. Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-x11

I was prompted whether or not I wanted to keep my current configuration file or replace it, I chose to keep it.

Once the last command finishes reboot the virtual machine. The display can then be resized.

It works! Ubuntu is back to normal.

Incidentally, I also had to remove etckeeper. Its been giving some trouble for a while now.

Update:
11Oct10: Oracle just released VirtualBox 3.2.10, that probably fixes this issue.