4 Guest Additions Debian 1. In order to fully update your guest system, open a terminal and run apt-get update as root followed by apt-get upgrade 2. Install the make tool and the GNU C compiler using apt-get install make gcc 3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates. 4. Determine the exact version of your kernel using uname -a and install the correct version of the linux-headers package, e.g. using apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-686 4.2.2.2 Graphics and mouse integration In Linux and Solaris guests, VirtualBox graphics and mouse integration goes through the X Win- dow System. VirtualBox can use the X.Org variant of the system (or XFree86 version 4.3 which is identical to the first X.Org release). During the installation process, the X.Org display server will be set up to use the graphics and mouse drivers which come with the Guest Additions. After installing the Guest Additions into a fresh installation of a supported Linux distribution or Solaris system (many unsupported systems will work correctly too), the guest’s graphics mode will change to fit the size of the VirtualBox window on the host when it is resized. You can also ask the guest system to switch to a particular resolution by sending a “video mode hint” using the VBoxManage tool. Multiple guest monitors are supported in guests using the X.Org server version 1.3 (which is part of release 7.3 of the X Window System version 11) or a later version. The layout of the guest screens can be adjusted as needed using the tools which come with the guest operating system. If you want to understand more about the details of how the X.Org drivers are set up (in particular if you wish to use them in a setting which our installer doesn’t handle correctly), you should read chapter 9.4.2, Guest graphics and mouse driver setup in depth, page 139. 4.2.2.3 Updating the Linux Guest Additions The Guest Additions can simply be updated by going through the installation procedure again with an updated CD-ROM image. This will replace the drivers with updated versions. You should reboot after updating the Guest Additions. 4.2.2.4 Uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions If you have a version of the Guest Additions installed on your virtual machine and wish to remove it without installing new ones, you can do so by inserting the Guest Additions CD image into the virtual CD-ROM drive as described above and running the installer for the current Guest Additions with the “uninstall” parameter from the path that the CD image is mounted on in the guest: sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run uninstall While this will normally work without issues, you may need to do some manual cleanup of the guest (particularly of the XFree86Config or xorg.conf file) in some cases, particularly if the Additions version installed or the guest operating system were very old, or if you made your own changes to the Guest Additions setup after you installed them. Starting with version 3.1.0, you can uninstall the Additions by invoking 60