For completion, just thought I’d let anybody interested know that I have fixed this (at least, for my own setup!).  The trick is to use the version of VBox Guest Additions specifically for Ubuntu 12.* - see the final post at https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45549:

Install Ubuntu package virtualbox-ose-guest-utils (via apt-get or synaptic) instead of the standard VB Guest Additions.


this instruction doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere (official) on the VirtualBox website.  However, after installing this:

 

ccw@ccw:~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

OpenGL vendor string:   Humper

OpenGL renderer string: Chromium

OpenGL version string:  2.1 Chromium 1.9

 

Not software rendered:    yes

Not blacklisted:          yes

GLX fbconfig:             yes

GLX texture from pixmap:  yes

GL npot or rect textures: yes

GL vertex program:        yes

GL fragment program:      yes

GL vertex buffer object:  yes

GL framebuffer object:    yes

GL version is 1.4+:       yes

 

Unity 3D supported:       yes

 

(different OpenGL info, and “Not software rendered” and “Unity 3D supported” now say ‘Yes’, whereas before installing this version of VBox Guest Additions these said ‘no’).  I can now also run Chimera, seemingly successfully (so far at least!).

 

Chris

-------------------

Dr Chris Wood

STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Didcot

OX11 0QX

 

chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk
www.ccpem.ac.uk


Tel: +44(0)1235 567864

Tel: +44(0)7909 586624
Fax: +44(0)1235 567801

 

Skype: chris_c_wood

 

From: chimera-users-bounces@cgl.ucsf.edu [mailto:chimera-users-bounces@cgl.ucsf.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Couch
Sent: 06 February 2013 01:34
To: Chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu
Subject: Re: [Chimera-users] Chimera on a virtualbox

 

(No real need to involve the list, we'll figure this out and report back)



-------- Original Message --------

Subject:

Re: [Chimera-users] Chimera on a virtualbox

Date:

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:22:51 -0800

From:

Greg Couch <gregc@cgl.ucsf.edu>

To:

chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk

 

It appears as if you missed the:

    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$CHIMERA/lib

before running gdb because the import of libgfxinfo.so failed.  And there should be a space between "break" and "_exit" in the gdb command.

    -- Greg

On 02/05/2013 04:38 PM, chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk wrote:

Hi Greg,

 

I know that doing anything with graphics within virtual machines is not always a brilliant idea, but I have seen Chimera work in VirtualBox and I wanted to get to the bottom of why mine doesn’t…

 

I’ve got the latest graphics driver on my host (and I run Chimera successfully on it anyway).  I’ve run the commands you suggested, with the following output

 

$ gdb $CHIMERA/bin/python2.7

GNU gdb (Ubuntu/Linaro 7.4-2012.04-0ubuntu2.1) 7.4-2012.04

Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"

and "show warranty" for details.

This GDB was configured as "x86_64-linux-gnu".

For bug reporting instructions, please see:

<http://bugs.launchpad.net/gdb-linaro/>...

Reading symbols from /home/ccw/.local/chimera-1.7/bin/python2.7...done.

(gdb) break_exit

Undefined command: "break_exit".  Try "help".

(gdb) run $CHIMERA/share/__main__.py --debug

Starting program: /home/ccw/.local/chimera-1.7/bin/python2.7 $CHIMERA/share/__main__.py --debug

[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]

Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/home/ccw/.local/chimera-1.7/share/__main__.py", line 69, in <module>

    value = chimeraInit.init(sys.argv)

  File "/home/ccw/.local/chimera-1.7/share/chimeraInit.py", line 594, in init

    import chimera

  File "/home/ccw/.local/chimera-1.7/share/chimera/__init__.py", line 16, in <module>

    from _chimera import BBox, Camera, Color, ColorGroup, DirectionalLight, LODControl, Lens, LensViewer, Light, Material, MaterialColor, Model, NoGuiViewer, OGLFont, OSLAbbreviation, OpenModels, OpenState, PathFinder, PixelMap, Plane, Point, PositionalLight, Selectable, SharedState, SpotLight, Sphere, Texture, TextureColor, TrackChanges, Vector, Viewer, X3DScene, Xform

ImportError: libgfxinfo.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[Inferior 1 (process 4025) exited with code 01]

(gdb) bt

No stack.

 

I guess the lack of libgfxinfo.so is fairly significant, and I assume that the result from bt is all part of the problem?

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

From: chimera-users-bounces@cgl.ucsf.edu [mailto:chimera-users-bounces@cgl.ucsf.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Couch
Sent: 05 February 2013 23:26
To: Chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu
Subject: Re: [Chimera-users] Chimera on a virtualbox

 

(Forgot to send reply to whole list)

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:

Re: [Chimera-users] Chimera on a virtualbox

Date:

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:51:47 -0800

From:

Greg Couch <gregc@cgl.ucsf.edu>

To:

chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk

 

Hi Chris,

So what are you trying to do with Chimera inside a virtual machine?  Presumably, you're not trying to use it graphically because virtualized graphics performance is usually abysmal.  Chimera benefits immensely from direct access to the graphics hardware.  So that leaves using Chimera as a server, and for that the headless version of Chimera is usually better -- the headless version uses a software implementation of OpenGL and thus avoids any driver issues.

That said, this bug is still likely to be related to OpenGL support in VirtualBox.  Make sure the computer that VirtualBox is running on has an up-to-date OpenGL graphics driver.  It doesn't matter what VirtualBox does if the underlying system has a bad graphics driver.

To confirm that the bug is in the graphics driver, get a backtrace of where the error occurs by using gdb as follows in a Terminal window (and assuming there is a symbolic link to the chimera binary on your path):

    % export CHIMERA=`chimera --root`
    % export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$CHIMERA/lib
    % gdb $CHIMERA/bin/python2.7
    (gdb) break_exit
    (gdb) run $CHIMERA/share/__main__.py --debug
    (gdb) bt

The '%' and '(gdb)' parts are the shell and gdb prompts, respectively.  The output from the bt command will probably be in Chimera's molecular drawing code (as opposed to drawing the UI).  If you need help interpreting the chimera backtrace, you can send it to me.

    HTH,

    Greg

On 02/05/2013 12:48 PM, chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk wrote:

Hello all,

 

I'm trying to run Chimera on VirtualBox. The installation completes fine, but when I try and run the program (cd to the bin directory and run ./chimera) I see

 

X Error of failed request:  BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)

Major opcode of failed request:  72 (X_PutImage)

Resource id in failed request:  0x480006a

Serial number of failed request:  1382

Current serial number in output stream:  1388

 

I've tried enabling / disabling hardware virtualization & 3D acceleration, but to no avail. Although people do seem to have problems with chimera on a virtualbox, it normally seems to be a problem with OpenGL, which this doesn't seem to be.

 

Has anyone seen this error before? Is there anything else I'm missing? I can’t even work out if it's a hardware, VirtualBox, or OS problem…

 

System:

VirtualBox 4.2.4
Guest additions 4.2.4

Guest OS: Ubuntu 12.04
Host OS: Windows 7 professional

 

Thanks in advance!

Chris

-------------------

Dr Chris Wood

STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Didcot

OX11 0QX

 

chris.wood@stfc.ac.uk
www.ccpem.ac.uk


Tel: +44(0)1235 567864

Tel: +44(0)7909 586624
Fax: +44(0)1235 567801

 

 

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