VirtualBox / VMWare and WSL Woes

Hey everyone,

I’ve been playing around with VirtualBox, WSL, and Arch Linux during my free time and run into issues while trying out Arch Linux in a VirtualBox VM.

Some info about my system:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 5950x
  • Windows 10 Pro 20H2
  • Using WSL2 for Docker

Currently no matter what I do I get a Kernel Panic error when trying to boot Arch in a VirtualBox VM. After looking through other threads for similar issues. I think it comes down to WSLv2 and VirtualBox not playing nice.

It seems like with the development of WSL2 Microsoft is pushing Windows virtualization platforms into using Hyper-V interface which uses VT-x/AMD-V exclusively. Then VirtualBox and other hypervisiors cannot use VT-x/AMD-V.

Yep.

There are currently three options:

  1. Stop using virtualbox and vmware
  2. Stop using Hyper-V. That includes WSL2, windows sandbox, device guard and Hyper-v itself.
  3. Switch Hyper-V on and off with boot options: https://blog.pauby.com/post/how-to-use-hyperv-virtualbox-vmware-multiple-boot-entries/
1 Like

That sucks for hypervisors like VMWare and VirtualBox! From what I have read the performance when using the Hyper-V interface is much worse. And rebooting each time you want to swap is lame. Guess I’ll just try to get Arch dual booting on my MacBook pro instead as a project.

had some issues loading linux onto a vm. it wouldnt let me get past the logo to login.
the problem. a conflict? with hypervisor.

the solution: turn hypervisor off via the cmd and reboot.

not tried running a hypervisor box yet. but for now virtualbox seems to be working fine running an instance of windows 10 and an instance of kali.