Solved

Installed VirtualBox from Commandline but Won't Run GUI from Desktop

Posted on 2012-12-26

Linux

2 solutions

458 Views

Last Modified: 2013-01-03

Hello,

I'm rather new to Linux and I need a little help. I'm running Fedora 14.

I installed VirtualBox from the Terminal Command Line. It seems to work fine from there. For instance, the following commands work great (so I think it's installed):

[root@localhost opt]# vboxmanage -version
4.2.6r82870

Open in new window

[root@localhost VirtualBox]# sh VBoxSysInfo.sh
Distribution: Fedora | Version: 14 | Kernel: Linux version 2.6.35.14-106.fc14.i686 (gcc version 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Wed Nov 23 13:57:33 UTC 2011

Open in new window

Problem is that I'd like to use the standard desktop GUI but it doesn't do anything. So, when I go to Applications --> System Tools --> Oracle VM Virtualbox nothing happens! No error, no program, no nothing.

I'm assuming some files permissions are wrong, but I'm not sure where to start. Could you help me solve this problem and get the VirtualBox GUI running from my desktop?

Thanks,
Jason

Comment

Question by:SqueezeOJ

[X]

Welcome to Experts Exchange

Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.

Help others & share knowledge
Earn cash & points
Learn & ask questions

Join The Community

4 Comments

LVL 6

Assisted Solution

by:Jelcin

Jelcin earned 200 total points

ID: 387221472012-12-26

try to run virtualbox from command line and see if there are any errors?

i am not sure for the command maybe it's just "virtualbox".

Author Comment

by:SqueezeOJ

ID: 387292882012-12-29

Good idea, Jelcin.

Here's what I got:

[root@localhost VirtualBox]# pwd
/opt/VirtualBox

[root@localhost VirtualBox]# virtualbox
VirtualBox: supR3HardenedVerifyDir: Cannot trust the directory "/opt/VirtualBox": group and/or other writable (st_mode=040777)

Open in new window

Permissions on the directories that seem to matter are:

For opt: drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Dec 24 14:35 opt

For virtualbox: drwxrwxrwx 12 root root 4096 Dec 24 14:35 VirtualBox

I should note that the user name with which I generally log in is "user".

What do you think I should do next?

Accepted Solution

by:SqueezeOJ

SqueezeOJ earned 0 total points

ID: 387293382012-12-29

After screwing around with it some more, I decided to uninstall it using sh uninstall.sh in the same directory and just reinstall it.

Since I'm running a slightly older version of Fedora (FC14), I decided to go find the original VBox RPM for my distro. Here's the download page: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_4_1

I ran this from FireFox through the Package Installer and now it works great.

Case closed. Thanks for your help though!

Author Closing Comment

by:SqueezeOJ

ID: 387394842013-01-03

Would've liked to know what was wrong, but also just wanted to get this to work, so uninstalling and reinstalling fixed it, but didn't teach me much.

Featured Post

Question has a verified solution.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question

How to Get Firefox's Flash Plugin to work on 64-bit Linux

Article by: DrDamnit

Linux users are sometimes dumbfounded by the severe lack of documentation on a topic. Sometimes, the documentation is copious, but other times, you end up with some obscure "it varies depending on your distribution" over and over when searching for …

Linux

It’s time to kill the password

Article by: Teksquisite

It’s 2016. Password authentication should be dead — or at least close to dying. But, unfortunately, it has not traversed Quagga stage yet. Using password authentication is like laundering hotel guest linens with a washboard — it’s Passé.

Connect to Amazon EC2 Instance Using PuTTY

Video by: Champloo

Connecting to an Amazon Linux EC2 Instance from Windows Using PuTTY.

PRTG Quick Overview (07:27)

Video by: Kimberley

Get a first impression of how PRTG looks and learn how it works. This video is a short introduction to PRTG, as an initial overview or as a quick start for new PRTG users.