We daily get many emails from our readers complaining about not so good resolutions they get after installing  a guest Linux OS on their Virtualbox. Even, we at digitizor face problems configuring the same. So in this article we will tell you how to successfully change the display resolution of your Linux Guest OS on Virtualbox to a better screen resolution.

First of all upgrade to the latest version of Virtualbox which happens to be 2.2.2. It has many added new features for Guest Linux OSes.

Now, Install your Guest Linux OS. If you have already installed one, power it on. Install Guest additions by clicking on Devices > Install Guest Additions… in the Virtualbox Guest window that is currently running your Linux OS (Guest). In case you are facing any problems installing Guest Additions for your Linux Guest OS, you should read our step-by-step guide to installing Virtualbox Guest additions in a Linux Guest OS.

Now edit the xorg.conf file in the /etc/X11/ directory. (You should see this if you can’t find the xorg.conf file. ) Add the following to the section that reads – Section “Screen” in your xorg.conf, as show in this image to the right. Here the mode “1280x800” appears as we wanted that resolution. If you want some other resolution, replace suitably. Fedora Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux users may achieve this graphically by using the display tool which can also be launched using the system-config-display command. The Display utility can be found at System > Administration > Display on a standard GNOME Desktop. You need to restart the X now by hitting ctrl+alt+bksp.

Now you can change your display resolution, once you login. To do so you can either use xrandr or the screen resolution tool. We have explained it in a detailed how-to guide.

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