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Tuning.md

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Post-installation tuning

Although not strictly needed, I find it convenient to tune some settings. These are optional and independent from each other, but they are documented in case you trip on the same inconveniences as I did.

Remove the optical drive

Apart from the initial installation, the optical drive is likely not going to be needed. It looks like its presence contributes to the chance of a slow boot when enumerating the devices, therefore I strongly suggest to remove it.

To remove it, go to Settings... → Storage, select the optical drive and then Remove Attachment.

In case you need it again, go to Settings... → Storage, select the controller (Controller SATA) and then Add Optical Drive.

Change the display resolution

The lack of guest additions makes it harder to change the resolution of the display in an arbitrary way, but there is a simple method to choose between some predefined settings. From the command-line, run:

VBoxManage setextradata Tiger VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode n

where n is one of 0-5, respectively representing:

  1. 640x480
  2. 800x600
  3. 1024x768
  4. 1280x1024
  5. 1440x900
  6. 1920x1200

Change the host key

VirtualBox captures the host key and instead of passing it to the virtual machine, it uses it to detach the keyboard from the guest OS and as a key modifier for the VirtualBox operations.

The left command key (left-⌘) is the default host key. I find it more convenient to set the host key to the right command key, as I normally use the left one in the host OS (to copy & paste, open Spotlight and so on) and being able to use the same key combinations in the guest OS makes switching between the two environments feel much more seamless.

Change system settings

Most system settings can be changed at any time, either before or after the installation process, including:

  • the number of processors
  • the amount of memory
  • whether the system is 32-bits or 64-bits

Remember that binaries built for x86_64 will not be able to run when the virtual machine is configured as Version: Mac OS X (32-bit). Instead, a virtual machine configured as Version: Mac OS X (64-bit) will be able to run both i386 and x86_64 binaries.

WARNING: when changing some of the virtual machine settings, VirtualBox resets the firmware setting to EFI instead of EFI32. If the virtual machine is configured as 64-bits (Version: Mac OS X (64-bit)), this will prevent it from booting successfully. To fix this, run:

VBoxManage modifyvm Tiger --firmware efi32