Debian – Increase resolution for debian guest in virtualbox

debianguest-additionsresolutionvirtualbox

I have a windows 7 host and a debian 8 guest. I already installed

virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-dkms

as described in https://askubuntu.com/questions/3205/higher-screen-resolution-in-virtualbox. Before installing these packages I was able to select a maximum of 1024*768. After installation 1600*1200 was possible. But I simply want to use 1920*1080 fullscreen on my display.

Pressing Host-G is not possible. I seams this combination is deactivated.
How do I increase VirtualBox resolution past 800×600 in Linux?

Is there a way to do this?

Best Answer

A straightforward way of achieving that would be to change the specific configuration in the grub2 bootloader directly:

  1. Find out the resolutions supported by your debian guest

    • Reboot debian and keep pressing c until you see the grub console.
    • Press vbeinfo and hit enter. It will give you a list of supported resolutions.

  2. Edit /etc/grub.d/00_header

    • Replace autoin the line if [ "x${GRUB_GFXMODE}" = "x" ] ; then GRUB_GFXMODE=auto ; fi with the new resolution. e.g.: if [ "x${GRUB_GFXMODE}" = "x" ] ; then GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080 ; fi
    • Right underneath, make a copy of the line edited and replace MODE with PAYLOAD. e.g.: if [ "x${GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD}" = "x" ] ; then GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD=1920x1080 ; fi
    • Further below, you'll find the following line: set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}. Add the following line below it: set gfxpayload=${GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD}
  3. Reload grub2 configurations by running the command update-grub2 and rebooting afterwards reboot

[Note]
I've seen many examples in which the default line #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 in the file /etc/defaul/grub in uncommented. It was proven to be unnecessary for me but in case you need it, remember to update-grub2 after you've uncommented it.

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