Ubuntu or other Linux distributions may be slow when you run it within VirtualBox. Often, the cause is that not enough RAM is assigned to the virtual machine, which makes it run slow and makes it unresponsive. However, if your VM already has plenty of RAM and you also already tried assigning an extra virtual CPU core to the machine, this guide might help you make Ubuntu faster in Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Execute the following command to see if 3D acceleration is being used or not:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

It will probably say:

Unity 3D supported: no

Now that’s bad news, because the graphical interface of Ubuntu makes your whole system slow and laggy. So first of all, make sure you have the VirtualBox Guest additions installed.

Once this is installed, we now install the vboxvideo driver:

sudo bash -c 'echo vboxvideo >> /etc/modules'

Now, shutdown Ubuntu. Then, you open the settings of your virtual Ubuntu and you go to ‘Display‘. Now tick ‘Enable 3D Acceleration‘.

Start your (formerly) slow Ubuntu and you should notice faster navigation, opening of apps as well as an overall snappier experience!

If you really want to speed things up even further, you can install the CompizConfig Settings Manager. To install and run it, open Terminal and execute this command:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager && ccsm

Go to OpenGL and untick Framebuffer Object. Also, you might want to disable effects, such as fading windows, animations and window decoration.

