I am currently running Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 and I want to check out Linux Mint. The problem is that I have a dual monitor setup, and this one of the main things I want to compare. I have set the up two monitors in the setting for virtual box, but the second one isn't visible to the guests.
I was running ubuntu from a windows host and was able to just stretch the window across the 2 screens and virtual box resized the ubuntu vm. any more than 2 screens and it crashes. Not shure how to do it with full screen, perhaps a surround setting would enable that.
This might not be the answer you are looking for, but that seems like something I would do on the machine directly vs a VM. Some things don't translate through a VM the same (also depends on what virtualization you use), and running as a live distro from a USB stick would probably give a much more realistic look and feel of how it would work installed on bare metal. You could spend a lot of time and effort attempting to get a VM to act the same and still not be certain if it actually behaves the same as a bare metal install.
Even better is to have a spare drive and test it from there, because some distro's don't have their live environment functioning properly, but I would imagine that the live environment for Mint would give you a better feel for how it will work in practice vs a VM.
I have a high speed usb stick anyway so I will go try that and see how it turns out.
Have you installed the VirtualBox tools in the guest OS? I think they provide the drivers to support a second virtual monitor.
So... VirtualBox doesn't actually "see" monitors. It just comes up as two Windows you move around. Even if I had one monitor, I could set Virtualbox to use two and have two within the guest. I wouldn't be able to see more than 1 at a time unless their resolution was smaller than my monitor, but it should "just work".
@Tex Have you installed Guest Additions for the guest? I believe that's required.
You should also install the Extension Pack:
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
VirtualBox 5.1.22 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack All supported platforms
Be sure to use this:
Then do this:
You gotta enable it once you log into the machine and the desktop is up. In my Windows VM, the option to enable Virtual Screen 2 doesn't become selectable until I log in. i.e. it is greyed out.
3 Likes
Thanks guys I didn't know about guest additions. It works fine now.
1 Like
I did what you recommended and it’s still not allowing me to enable the 2nd screen.
I did install the VirtualBox Extension Pack on the primary OS (Windows 10) and the guest macOS.
1 Like
Did you log into the OS first?
Yep. Fully functional, Safari opens, Mail opens…
1 Like
That’s strange. I’m not sure then. Sorry.