Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 985108
Can't switch host workspaces when guest is in full screen
Last modified: 2014-01-29 13:47:06 EST
Description of problem: I am using a LinuxMint 15 x64 host and Windows 7 32 bit guest. I can normally switch between host workspaces via ctl-alt-left and ctl-alt-right keys. I would like to have my guest running full screen in one host workspace, and have full access to my host's other workspaces via the change workspace hot keys. The hot keys are ignored when in the guest OS. I have spent hours trying to figure a way around this with no luck. You have to un-full-screen the guest, move the cursor off the guest, and then the switch workspace hot keys work. This is very cumbersome to do when this configuration would seem to be the most used configuration. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): LinuxMint 15 x64, kvm VM, 32 bit Windows 7 guest. virt-manager doesn't have a Help / About box so I can't tell what version it is. It is the latest version shipped with LinuxMint 15. How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. Windows guest in full-screen mode 2. Ctl-alt-right keys to switch workspace when in the guest Actual results: Nothing happens Expected results: Switch host workspace Additional info:
Spice's default behavior is to grab all keyboard input when focused. This is so that shortcuts like ctrl+alt+left will be passed to the guest and not to the host. There's a setting to turn it off, but I'm not really interested in adding UI for it in virt-manager figuring this request is the only one I can think of to expose that behavior. Pretty much all other clients behave the same as well. You could try filing a bug with upstream spice-gtk asking them to add a --disable-keyboard-grab option, which all clients then get for free (mostly). Then you could invoke virt-manager with --disable-keyboard-grab and things would mostly work for your use case. But it would break alt+tab inside the guest, so there's a tradeoff. You could also try using the spicy client which allows configuring this Closing as WONTFIX for virt-manager