Display error in virtual machine

Rosika · January 27, 2023, 3:16pm

Hi all,

I ran into some weird problem as of late.

For my second virtual machine - Bodhi Linux - I now opted for the command-line approach in order to get rid of the permission error virt-manager threw at me with my debian vm.

So according to kvm - Permission error in virtual machine manager - Ask Ubuntu I also can do it thus:

sudo chown libvirt-qemu:libvirt-qemu <image-file>

That I did and thus could easily import the existing img-file for Bodhi.
The vm starts alright but when logging in I´m presented with an error message:

Error found when loading /home/rosika2/.xprofile:
xrandr: cannot find output “Virtual-0”

Hmm…
I then started Bodhi using the i3 tiling window manager and thus at least could get a smaller window in which I could make use of the terminal.

xrandr -q informed me about Virtual-0 being used. So I changed into /home/rosika2/ and looked at .xprofile:

 cat .xprofile
#!/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode  "1696x953_60.00"  133.75  1696 1800 1976 2256  953 956 966 989 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode Virtual-0 1696x953_60.00

Hmm… xrandr -q said “Virtual-0 connected primary […]”.
So I changed the config file to use “Virtual-1”.

I rebooted and indeed everything´s o.k. now …
… as long as I make use of the i3 tiling window manager.

However the problem remains when trying to use the Moksha DE. Still I´m presented with a popup. It says:

Display output is not active

I guess there´s a dedicated config file for Moksha which needs changing but I don´t know where to start here.

Does anybody have a clue and can help me

Thanks a lot in advance.

Many greetings from Rosika

nevj · January 27, 2023, 11:28pm

Hi Rosika,
You need information. This might point you in the right direction

It covers configuring, but it uses gui… doesnt tell you where the files are.
Maybe you should just search… their names should be obvious. They will be dot files, either in your home directory, or in /etc.

Regards
Neville

Rosika · January 28, 2023, 1:14pm

Hi Neville,

thanks so much for your help and for providing the link.

I was reading around quite a bit but couldn´t find the right place for my problem it seems.
Perhaps I wasn´t thorough enough…

Anyway, I now posted the issue in the Bodhi forum:
display error in virtual machine | Bodhi Linux Forums .

Perhaps somebody over there knows how to tackle the problem. As soon as I come up with anything substantial I´ll post it here.

Thanks a lot, Neville and many greetings.
Rosika

Rosika · January 31, 2023, 4:08pm

Hi again,

in the meantime I was able to get my second VM (Debian) also running on Linux Lite.

Curiously enough this one didn´t make any trouble at all.
After changing the ownership the img-file could easily be imported by virt-manager.

And Debian works great. I can launch it with i3 tiling window manager AND the default DE (Debian xfce). Yes, lauching Debian with an DE works.

In contrast to Debian Bodhi Linux only works with i3 tiling window manager, as you know.

So now I decided to do a comparison of the settings of the two systems. I was thinking: there has to be some difference somewhere…

Here are the settings (all xrandr -q):

Debian:

xrandr -q:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1696 x 953, maximum 8192 x 8192
Virtual-0 connected primary 1696x953+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768      59.95 +
   1920x1200     59.95  
   1920x1080     60.00  
   1600x1200     59.95  
   1680x1050     60.00  
   1400x1050     60.00  
   1280x1024     59.95  
   1440x900      59.99  
   1280x960      59.99  
   1280x854      59.95  
   1280x800      59.96  
   1280x720      59.97  
   1152x768      59.95  
   800x600       59.96  
   848x480       59.94  
   720x480       59.94  
   640x480       59.94  
   1696x953_60.00  59.95* 
Virtual-1 disconnected
Virtual-2 disconnected
Virtual-3 disconnected

and Bodhi:

xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1696 x 953, maximum 8192 x 8192
Virtual-1 connected primary 1696x953+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768      59.92 +  60.00
   4096x2160     60.00    59.94
   2560x1600     59.99    59.97
   1920x1440     60.00
   1856x1392     60.00
   1792x1344     60.00
   2048x1152     60.00
   1920x1200     59.88    59.95
   1920x1080     60.00
   1600x1200     60.00
   1680x1050     59.95    59.88
   1400x1050     59.98    59.95
   1600x900      60.00
   1280x1024     60.02
   1440x900      59.89    59.90
   1280x960      60.00
   1366x768      59.79    60.00
   1360x768      60.02
   1280x800      59.81    59.91
   1280x768      59.87    59.99
   1280x720      60.00
   800x600       60.32    56.25
   848x480       60.00
   640x480       59.94
   1696x953_60.00  59.95*

The only difference I can spot is that Debian uses “Virtual-0” whereas Bodhi uses “Virtual-1”.

Originally Bodhi also had the “Virtual-0” setting applied but I had to change that to “Virtual-1” in ~/.xprofile:

cat .xprofile
#!/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode  "1696x953_60.00"  133.75  1696 1800 1976 2256  953 956 966 989 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode Virtual-1 1696x953_60.00

otherwise I would get the error message shown in my post #1.

Alas I couldn´t take a look at ~/.xprofile in Debian (for comparison´s sake) as it doesn´t have that file.

So that´s how far I got.

It´s a shame that I cannot get Bodhi to work it used to. With the settings listed above I still get the error message “Display output is not active” unless I opt for i3 tiling window manager…

Many greetings
Rosika

nevj · January 31, 2023, 9:01pm

Is Debian maybe using global xprofile somewhere in /etc or maybe /usr/share/… ?

Rosika · February 1, 2023, 12:40pm

Hi Neville,

thanks for the suggestion.

I looked it up but couldn´t find either “xprofile” or “.xprofile” anywhere. Such a file doesn´t seem to exist in /home.
Nor does it exist in the paths you suggested.

I even initiated a search starting from the root directory:


 cd /
rosika2@debian /> sudo find -iname ".xprofile"
rosika2@debian /> sudo find -iname "xprofile"
rosika2@debian />

… couldn´t find anything.

Still, thanks a lot, Neville.

Many greetings from Rosika