On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 07:14:11PM +0100, Michael Siemmeister wrote: > Last week I tried to install Debian in a virtual-box. Currently I use > Debian 8.7 for running the virtual-box program. I managed to install > Debian stable without any problems. Then I cloned the virtual-box and > tried an upgrade to Debian-testing. I think, it worked. After a while > I shut down the virtual-machine. When trying to reboot, it did not > start properly. I just got some messages like 'Created slice User > Slice of Debian-gdm.', 'Starting User Manager ofr UID 117.', and > finally 'Started Daily apt activities.'. Then the virtual display just > starts blinking. Nothing else happens. After three minutes or so the > display freezes. > > Then I thought, okay, maybe the virtualbox program has got a bug. So, > I downloaded the Debian-Testing-DVD-1 via jigdo-lite and copied it to > a USB drive. I tried to install Debian-Testing on an old laptop, a > Toshiba Satellite from 2009. Unfortunately I don' remember the exact > model number. I had already installed Debian Stable without any > problems on that laptop some months ago. The Debian-Testing installer > worked fine and finally, it asked me to reboot the PC. After rebooting > similar problems occured. There was a message about the graphics card > and after 30 seconds the display started blinking. Nothing else > happened. > > As I have written above these errors only occured with Debian-Testing. > Debian-Stable worked fine on Virtualbox and the Toshiba laptop. So, I > don't think there are some hardware problems.
If you are running virtualbox on jessie, that would be version 4.3.36. I do find a lot of problems reported with gnome 3 and virtual box 4.x. I wonder if virtualbox 5.1.8 in jessie-backports would solve the problem. I also wonder if having virtualbox 4.x as host with 5.x guest utilities installed could cause problems (I suspect the guest utilities are automatically installed and for stretch they would be version 5.x, not 4.x). After all gnome3 mandates 3D accaleration, and having drivers that don't match the hardware (virtualbox in this case) could be a problem. -- Len Sorensen
