Re: NetBSD vs. VirtualBox

[Chavdar Ivanov <ci4ic4%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Sat, 22 Aug 2026 at 01:58, Greg A. Woods <woods%planix.ca@localhost> wrote:
>
> So, I've been toying with VirtualBox (running under macOS) and NetBSD
> for quite some years now, but never with really good success.

There is no official VirtualBox guest extension for NetBSD, as far as
I know it. Years ago, when I used
VirtualBox (under Windows), I followed the source package of the
version installed and built the extension.

I do not use VirtualBox at the moment, so am not sure about the state
of the things. Back then, when it worked,
I had reasonably decent experience with it.
>
> I've just upgraded VirtualBox to 7.2.16, but some bad/strange behaviours
> persist.
>
> So far I'm still trying to use it in BIOS mode.  I guess I should try a
> UEFI install, but not today.

 I prefer to install it in UEFI mode, although my primary dev vm under
ProxMox is currently using BIOS.

I have a secondary one with released v11 which is fine with UEFI.

>
>
> First off I often get repeated key presses on the console (making it
> impossible to login there -- one key press repeats up to dozens of
> times).  It seems kind of random -- I can't find what's triggering it (I
> thought it was if I pressed <enter> to skip the boot countdown, but
> that's not it).  It only happens at the login prompt, not in the
> bootloader.

I remember that as well - and it was resolved somehow back then.
I thought it was via the secondary login screens, but seeing the
rest of the message, perhaps not...

>
> I've also tried selecting a high-resolution display with a "vesa 0x145"
> command (for 1280x1024x32).  This seems to work if done manually, but
> leads to wscons being broken (more below).  It doesn't seem to work at
> all if put (anywhere) in the /boot.cfg file.
>
> I've probably also mentioned that so far I've been unable to get a
> NetBSD VirtualBox VM to maintain anything even close to accurate time,
> even with ntpd running.  Up for 15 minutes and it's already almost 3m
> behind!

No guest additions is again my guess, but I do not remember having this issue.

>
> ntpq> peers
>      remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
> ==============================================================================
>  xenful.local    10.0.1.197       2 u    9   64  377    0.380  +174455 64436.1
>  xentastic.local 192.75.191.6     3 u    5   64  377    0.528  +175312 64608.5
>
> (10.0.1.197 is a local stratum-1 GPS-based server)
>
>
> I used to use Parallels (on macOS, aka OSX in the day), but the
> licensing got too expensive and restrictive for me to justify just for
> testing and playing with other systems.  It worked great with NetBSD
> though!  Far better than VB, especially at the time.
>
> I now use UTM more often, more below.
>
> As for the vesa vs. wscons problem:
>
> Here's what I see related in kernel output:
>
> genfb0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0: VMware Virtual SVGA II (rev. 0x00)
> genfb0: framebuffer at 0xe0000000, size 1280x1024, depth 32, stride 5120
> wsdisplay0 at genfb0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0
> wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
> drm at genfb0 not configured
>
> wsdisplay0: screen 7 added (default, vt100 emulation)
>
>
> And here's what /etc/rc.d/wscons has to say:
>
> [running /etc/rc.d/wscons]
> wsconscfg: screen 0 is already configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured
> Keyboard encoding -> us.swapctrlcaps
> ttyE1: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE1: Device not configured
> ttyE2: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE2: Device not configured
> ttyE3: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE3: Device not configured
> ttyE4: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE4: Device not configured
> ttyE5: wsconsctl: /dev/ttyE5: Device not configured
>
>
> Somehow the getty processes for ttyE[1-6] run, but trying to switch to
> any other virtual console doesn't work.
>
>
> Note that choosing a different display resolution in UTM, (I'm using
> UEFI there, so with the "gop" bootloader command), causes the same
> wscons failures as in VB.  (This is with 11.99.4 from late last year, I
> have not yet tried the latest -current.)
>
>
> Back to UTM (which is a QEMU front-end) for me.  Better, but broken in
> different ways.  X works there, but with stupidly limited resolutions
> and I haven't managed to run it full-screen with native resolution yet.
>
> --
>                                         Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost>
>
> Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost>
> Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost>     Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>

Chavdar

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