Parallel Tools for Linux Breaks X Windows

After installing Parallels Tools for Linux on my Debian (unstable) VM, X Windows will not start, so I had to uninstall the tools.

Anyone have any suggestions?
 
No one else seen this?

Its rather strange - if I boot, and it tries to fire up X Windows automatically - it fails, reverting back to a text console.

However, if from there, I type startx, X Windows DOES start.

Removing Parallels Tools cures the problem, but of course, leaves me without Parallels Tools.

Any suggestions?
 
ralphrmartin said:
No one else seen this?

Its rather strange - if I boot, and it tries to fire up X Windows automatically - it fails, reverting back to a text console.

However, if from there, I type startx, X Windows DOES start.

Removing Parallels Tools cures the problem, but of course, leaves me without Parallels Tools.

Any suggestions?

What do you see in your X log?
 
Is it possible Debian unstable is trying to accelerate the boot procedure by splitting the startup script?

In which case you might have the parallel tools trying to start before everything is properly loaded..

Sorry, can't help you more then that.
 
Also the same problem

I tried to install Parallels Tools into a working VM (server I spent some time configuring). The problem I was trying to solve - the window was frequently bigger than my screen area, at1400x900, but setting screen resolution to something nicer which would fit inside my screen area (e.g. 1024x768) caused a total crash and termination of the VM.

Now things are worse! X Windows will not start at all, and it doesn't even drop back to a console. Parallels, either support this toolset or don't offer it.

During installation, I noted the following error...
prl-tools-installer.sh: line 83: 10652 Floating point exceptionprluserd
 
Last edited:
Some resolution to the resolution problem

First of all, how to recover from Parallels' cock up.

When booting you can reboot in Single user mode by adding the S flag to the end of the kernel line in your GRUB configuration. On debian there is a single user mode already provided for you. This prevents the XWindows runlevel from being entered.

From there, you can copy back the original file (this has been backed up at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.prl-backup) into the proper place in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and check everything is fine by running

startx

After checking everything is fine, you can reboot into multi-user mode and follow through the automatic loading of X Windows as per usual.

I also made a copy of the same /etc/X11/xorg.conf.prl-backup file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.working since there's a danger that with your own edits, and Parallels' moving files around you might otherwise overwrite the only functioning version of the xorg configuration file.

Then I went in manually to the main xorg.conf file and removed references to resolutions higher than 1024x768, meaning it would fail over to that as the highest resolution, so at least I can get it to run inside a window properly, although now I can't run it full screen.

Finally I ran the uninstaller from the Parallels Tools CDROM. You have to click on Install Parallels Tools from the Parallels App menu and then run

mount /media/cdrom

if it's not already mounted. Change into the newly mounted directory.

cd /media/cdrom

From there you can run...

sh prl-tools-uninstall.sh

This is a bit annoying since all the resolutions seem to work, it's only switching between them which causes a crash, and this is an issue with the Parallels monitor not debian.

My advice, under no circumstances try to run Parallels Tools in the latest version of Debian. I'd like to use the Parallels Tools but they are unstable as hell.
 
Last edited:
I just installed the version 5584 and i confirm that parallels tools on linux (debian 4) is not working. During installation i have the following error:
"./prl-tools-installer.sh: line 83: 2990 Floating point exceptionprluserd"
and after rebooting X doesn't start.

With previous Parallels version 5160 the tools where working good.
 
Back
Top