Symptom:
When launching Gnome desktop on a virtual machine running inside Microsoft Virtual PC, the display is corrupted making it impossible to work with.
Solution:
The default bit depth used by Gnome Desktop is 24 bits while Microsoft Virtual PC only supports 16 or 32 bit display. To fix this in Centos 5 it is necessary to edit the Xorg.conf file and set the bit depth to 16 bits.
To change the bit depth:
- Boot the Centos VM in VPC to the command line and log in as the root user
- Edit the /etc/X11/Xorg.conf file
- In the “Screen section”, Change DefaultDepth to 16
- In the “Display” sub section, change Depth to 16
- Save the file
- At the command prompt type startx
Gnome desktop loads displaying correctly.