Hi Joe:
There are known issues with virtualbox on a Thinkpad related to suspend/hibernate failures (see below).
Quick Resurrection
[drop info from these steps into this email with reply to organize the issue]
1) Verify bootloader GRUB
What does your grub.conf look like?
Compare the old and new version, specifically looking at the kernel boot options.
What are you booting into?
2) Verify X
Boot into rescue mode, and go see what your /etc/X11/xorg.conf says.
Look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log for clues.
There would have been an old xorg.conf that was copied to backup.
Run Xconfigurator after copying current xorg.conf to KNOWNBACKUP.
Or just copy the current file to backup and move the old over.
Virtualbox
apt-get install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-1-amd64 virtualbox-ose-sourceapt-get install module-assistantmodule-assistant prepare virtualbox-osemodule-assistant auto-install virtualbox-osemodprove vboxdrvadduser myusername vboxusers
You might want to add vboxdrv to the list of modules in /etc/modules to be loaded automatically at startup in.
Virtualbox fails Hibernate
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4582777&postcount=3
To circumvent this, put this in ~/bin/vbox_suspend:
#!/bin/bash
for x in `vboxmanage -nologo list runningvms`
do
vboxmanage -nologo controlvm $x savestate
done
and make it executable. you can test it by running ~/bin/vbox_suspend, which should save all your running virtual machines.
put the following lines in /etc/pm/sleep.d/90virtualbox and make it executable as well:
#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
hibernate)
su YOURUSER -c /home/YOURUSER/bin/vbox_suspend
;;
esac
This is not very elegant (as the user is hard-coded), but it works.
I have tried to make the machines resume on thaw, but it would place
the vms on the wrong workspace even if it know which X server to use,
which it doesn't.
Known bug on Thinkpad with Suspend
Drivers for ThinkPads:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki
Obnosis | (503)754-4452
PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each Month@Noon - 3PM
> Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:21:03 -0700
> Subject: How to recover X display?
> From: joe@actionline.com
> To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>
> Yesterday at the ASU installfest, I sought help on how to install
> VirtualBox on my HP Thinkpad running PCLinuxOS. After downloading and
> installing VirtualBox, upon reboot, PCLinux goes through all the usual
> startup steps, and when GRUB displays 4 options: Linux, Linux AFB,
> Linux failsafe, and Windows (dual boot), it defaults into the first
> Linux option, displays all the usual startup screens, and then the
> screen goes blank with a small "-" in the upper left corner, but
> nothing else.
>
> I can still boot into Windows, and Linux failsafe, but when I get to
> the command line and type 'startx' the same result. No graphical
> display?
>
> How can I get back to where I was before installing VirtualBox (which,
> it seems apparent) caused this problem?
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