Installing the Window System drivers ...fail!

[drpebcak]

When installing the guest additions on a guest that has no GUI (in this case, Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS), The guest additions exit with a non-zero status because they attempt to install Window System drivers to a system with no GUI.

The installation is successful otherwise, but it still prints an error based on this issue. Can there be an option to not install video related components if there is no GUI to be found?

[Michael Thayer]

Please try applying this patch to "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11" on your guest system and executing "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11 setup" as root:

Index: src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh
===================================================================
--- src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh	(revision 91256)
+++ src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh	(working copy)
@@ -316,7 +316,11 @@
     fi
 
     test -z "$x_version" -o -z "$modules_dir" &&
-        fail "Could not find the X.Org or XFree86 Window System."
+        {
+            echo
+            echo "Could not find the X.Org or XFree86 Window System, skipping."
+            exit 0
+        }
 
     echo
     # openSUSE 10.3 shipped X.Org 7.2 with X.Org Server 1.3, but didn't

[drpebcak]

Replying to michael:

Please try applying this patch to "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11" on your guest system and executing "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11 setup" as root:

Index: src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh
===================================================================
--- src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh	(revision 91256)
+++ src/VBox/Additions/linux/installer/vboxadd-x11.sh	(working copy)
@@ -316,7 +316,11 @@
     fi
 
     test -z "$x_version" -o -z "$modules_dir" &&
-        fail "Could not find the X.Org or XFree86 Window System."
+        {
+            echo
+            echo "Could not find the X.Org or XFree86 Window System, skipping."
+            exit 0
+        }
 
     echo
     # openSUSE 10.3 shipped X.Org 7.2 with X.Org Server 1.3, but didn't

That avoids the error!

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11 setup
Installing the Window System drivers
Could not find the X.Org or XFree86 Window System, skipping.

Is this something that can be patched in to the actual guest additions that are distributed the VirtualBox?

[tmatilai]

This would be really nice feature for Vagrant, especially for the ​vagrant-vbguest plugin. Most Vagrant boxes don't have X installed and the error message confuses users. And the plugin has to ignore the exit code.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.