Configuration of Guest Additions in VirtualBox to enable full screen mode for Linux Lite O.S
I recently needed to install Linux Lite as a virtual machine (VM) in VirtualBox. Linux Lite is a lightweight desktop operating system/Linux distribution. After installing Linux Lite in VirtualBox, I was not able to use it in full screen mode. How to change it to full screen was an issue that took me about half a day to solve. The following note aims to explain Guest Additions configuration for Linux Lite distribution step-by-step.
Similar to Ubuntu Guest Additions configuration, I tried Insert Guest Additions CD Image in Devices menu. It usually solves full screen mode problem with other Linux distributions. But for Linux Lite, it gave the following error message:
Unable to insert the virtual optical disk C:\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso into the machine Lite.
Could not mount the media/drive ‘C:\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso’ …
To solve this problem, click on Optical Devices in Devices menu and leave the check mark on VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file as shown in below screenshot.
It does not matter if VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file is not included/inserted in Storage of Linux Lite virtual machine Settings.
You now need to start Linux Lite virtual machine. You will notice an icon with VBox_GA … name on Linux Lite desktop. It appears to be a virtual CD. Double click on it to open it. Inside virtual CD, there are a few files.
Select them all, and then copy them to tmp directory inside File System directory. Once inside tmp directory, right click and open terminal.
After opening terminal in tmp directory, type sudo ./VboxLinuxAdditions.run and press enter, and then type your sudo password. Opening terminal while inside tmp directory saves time locating VboxLinuxAdditions.run file. You may also copy name of the file and paste it after sudo ./ command. It requires a few minutes to configure VboxLinuxAdditions.run file. Final step is reboot of Linux Lite virtual machine. After reboot, it will appear in full screen mode, and that would be it.
I had the same issue with Ubuntu 20.04 installation. But it seemed that Ubuntu, itself, took care of installation after clicking on Insert Guest Additions CD Image in Devices menu, and that Linux Lite needed it to be configured manually.
If you have experienced similar issue while installing Linux Lite or Ubuntu in VirtualBox and were able to solve it differently, please feel free to let me know.
