3

I know it's been asked why Ubuntu is slow as a guest OS in VirtualBox, but all those answers are fairly old and seem to focus on graphics. In my case booting is also very slow, and there is a long delay when launching the software center (or anything) during which time the CPU runs at 100% but nothing is happening graphically. I've given the guest 2 GB of ram, 16 GB of disk space, enabled 3D acceleration (doesn't seem to make a different either way, though), gave it 1 CPU (I wasn't allowed to select more). Shutdown is also slow.

composerMike
  • 145
  • Did you turn Hardware Virtualization on in BIOS/EFI? – Danatela May 12 '14 at 09:11
  • that was it, didn't turn on Hardware Virtualization. Can you post that as an answer so I can mark it correct? Maybe it seems like an obvious thing, but it's amazing that I couldn't find any reference to it among all these posts about slow systems. – composerMike May 12 '14 at 19:36

2 Answers2

5

These symptoms (especially inability to select more than 1 CPU) witness that Hardware Virtualization is not turned on.

To turn it on, you need to go into BIOS/EFI. The setting is located under Advanced Settings/Configuration → CPU Configuration → Intel Virtualization Technology. See also How do I enable hardware virtualization technology (VT-x) for use in Virtualbox?

Also, you need to install Guest Additions for your system to function properly.

And if none of the above did work, you have to submit a bugreport.

Community
  • 1
Danatela
  • 13,243
  • 11
  • 45
  • 72
2

I have experienced the same problem

Host: Ubuntu 14.10 (64-bit), Guest: Windows 7 (64-bit)

Even with the virtualization turned on in host BIOS the CPU load was constantly around 40-50% in guest idle state

What helped me was installing Guest Addition with Direct 3D support (you need to do that in safe mode) and turning on the host I/O Cache of the SATA controller

So my current settings are:

System

Base memory: 4096 Mb (8192 Mb total host memory)

Processor: 6 CPUs (of host 6 CPUs)

PAE/NX: Enabled

VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled

Nested Paging: Enabled

Display

Video memory: 128 Mb

3D Acceleration: Enabled

2D Acceleration: Enabled

Works like a charm! Virtual Box Version: 4.3.18_Ubuntu r96516

Timofey Bondarenko
  • 71