X11 crashes in Live ISO and disk installation on VirtualBox 7.0.x and GNOME Boxes

[UriHerrera]

Describe the bug
When the distribution boots, either from the Live ISO or an installation using VirtualBox 7.0.x or GNOME Boxes, the graphical session does not start because X11 crashed and can't be started.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Download ISO
2. Create VM or import an existing installation to either hypervisor
3. Start VM
4. VM boots, but there's no graphical session

Expected behavior
Graphical session starts

Screenshots

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• Nitrux (=> 2.5.0)

Additional context
All I can find on the internet are multiple mentions of errors similar to this. They recall updates to X11 and MESA; however, I have already tried with previous versions of MESA, and there's no difference. I have also tried with multiple kernels, including the kernel from Debian and Ubuntu and the Canonical-built mainline kernels.

I have tried changing the adapter in the VM from VMSVGA to VBoxVGA and VBoxSVGA, and the latter results in a different error; however, the problem remains that X11 continues to crash. In either case, there are various messages that no DRI device was found in the log of Xorg. I also tried installing the guest utils Debian package to see if there was any difference; however, there isn't, although I did notice that a new service was added to OpenRC.

What is most incredible and strange is that using VirtualBox 6.1.40 and prior versions, there is no problem whatsoever. The graphical session starts fine; even 3D acceleration can be enabled in the VM settings.

I have used an ISO of the distribution before version 2.5.0, and the graphical session starts in both VirtualBox 7.0.x and GNOME Boxes, so even more mystery.

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I want to point out that VMWare Workstation 17 does not have this problem, as the graphical session starts. However, it is indeed required to have the VMWare Tools installed to avoid other graphical problems with KWin (like a black screen when maximizing a window.)

I have also tested with VMWare and VirtualBox on Windows, and just adding to the utter mystery, both use the same display driver, vmwgfx and device, and yet If I use inxi, the output is entirely different. From the output, it's visible that VirtualBox is not creating a DRI device for whatever reason, basically "no GPU" so X11 crashes.

I've only found a single person with a similar problem on the VirtualBox forums. However, I do not have 3D acceleration enabled in VirtualBox because it makes no difference. Also different in this case is that there are files in /dev/dri like renderD128, but there are no control files.

Using EFI or Legacy BIOS also makes no difference.

This issue is in addition to #81 No graphical session in Gnome Boxes when booting Live ISO

[UriHerrera]

Update

I seem to have found the problem. The images below are from Nitrux 2.4.0, which includes packages from MESA 22.3, albeit a development version. The upgrade to these packages, as shown in the images, is to packages from Debian; coincidentally, these are also version 22.3. Nonetheless, after applying the upgrades and login out, X11 crashes.

So I believe the problem is specifically with these packages:

libegl-mesa0
libgbm1
libgl1-mesa-dri
libglapi-mesa
libglx-mesa0
libxatracker2

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Now the thing is that even if I didn't choose to use the packages from Debian, but from the Oibaf PPA (version 23.0), X11 still crashes in VirtualBox, so maybe it's just a problem with MESA. I have also upgraded XOrg, the kernel, libllvm, GLibc, and X11 will work correctly until I upgrade those packages.

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Update II

I confirmed it is a problem with MESA 22.3 and 23.0 (at least with the packages we have access to).

I uploaded version 22.2.1 of these packages to our repository; then, I downgraded the packages et voila!, X11 works in VirtualBox 7.0.4

It is essential to mention that MESA 23.0 works on bare metal; the problem above is exclusively occurring in VirtualBox and GNOME Boxes.

Also, disclaimer: We do not develop MESA.

[philmmanjaro]

Most likely a git-bisect on mesa between 22.2.x and 22.3.x is needed. Similar as the niche issue we had with it: calamares/calamares#2074 (comment)

[UriHerrera]

This problem is solved today with MESA 23.0 commit 64d584b for VirtualBox; GNOME Boxes still doesn't work.

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@philmmanjaro Looks like that commit also fixes the problem you mentioned with Calamares. I didn't have a black screen when launching Calamares, but the window was unresponsive when using sudo.

[UriHerrera]

GNOME Boxes works now with version 2.7.1.