VirtualBox defaults to and often reset to 800x600 VGA mode

[Neal Rauhauser]

The 800x600 SVGA resolution was released in 1988 and superseded by 1024x768 XGA two years later in 1990. Both of these events preceded the first Linux kernel in the fall of 1991. The 1280x1024 SXGA resolution became common in the late 1990s and 1920x1080 FHD arrived in 2005.

While Linux has admirable backward compatibility, it is unclear to me why a sixteen year old piece of software defaults to a thirty five year old video standard for installation.

This is ABSOLUTELY a bug, as we are presented with a variety of video drivers and a video ram slider, but no way to enforce even a slightly higher default startup resolution.

Most of the Linux installs I've encountered over the last ten years seem to expect 1024x768 as a startup resolution. Selecting a higher resolution by launching install from a live trial works, but often requires resetting during the installation. Not all installs permit resolution adjustment. TAILS Linux long required blindly tabbing to get it started, but their ISO now includes VirtualBox extensions, so only one reset is needed.

Perhaps this is a BIOS level thing and I'm just howling into the void, but if it's possible, could we please get either a higher default resolution or a selector in configuration? 1024x768 would cover all the problems I've encountered. I think this works for the market as well - there are still some laptops with 1366x768, but they're fading fast and not many people virtualize using them.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: virtualbox 6.1.38-dfsg-3~ubuntu1.22.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.19.0-45.46~22.04.1-generic 5.19.17
Uname: Linux 5.19.0-45-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: Budgie:GNOME
Date: Sun Jun 25 12:52:01 2023
InstallationDate: Installed on 2023-05-22 (33 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Budgie 22.04.2 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20230223)
SourcePackage: virtualbox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)