kiro CLI and IDE do not work on Debian 12 in virtualbox VM on Windows 11 host

[mpetronic]

Checks

• I have searched github.com/aws/amazon-q-developer-cli/issues and there are no duplicates of my issue
• I have run q doctor in the affected terminal session
• I have run q restart and replicated the issue again

Operating system

Linux 6.1.0-44-amd64 - Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)

Expected behaviour

Running kiro-cli should walk me through a login and then allow me to open up the kiro shell on my Linux VM. Running just kiro should open up the IDE should walk me through a login and then allow me start using the IDE.

Actual behaviour

I am running Debian on a virtualbox VM that is running on my corporate Windows 11 host. When I run kiro-cli from a terminal in my Linux VM, initially it sends me to my default google-chrome-stable browser and I log in with my "Sign in via IAM Identity Center instead" URL and region. I successfully get to the "Allow Kiro CLI to access your data?" page and then select "Allow access". Next page I see indicates "Request approved. Kiro CLI has been given requested permissions" and my terminal command of kiro-cli then returns with:

Device authorized
Logged in successfully

But, if I then run kiro-cli doctor I see this which looks fine:

● Autocomplete is not yet available on Linux, but other products should work as expected.
✔ Everything looks good!

Finally, I try to start up a session using just kiro-cli and it immediately returns to no output and a exit code of 1:

~/Downloads
❯ kiro-cli

~/Downloads
❯ echo $?
1

If I try to run the latest kiro IDE that I also installed on the VM, it opens the sign on page, I click sign on, and the next page says:

We will take you to your default web browser to sign in and bring you back when it's complete...

But nothing happens, no browser, just sits there and does nothing. Note that kiro-cli DOES automatically determine my default browser, opens it, and proceeds through the login process so it is only the IDE that appears to not be able to find my default browser to enable me to login.

I opened a support ticket on this with AWS enterprise support and they indicated that only Ubuntu is supported. I cannot use Ubuntu for my work and believe you should support Debian 12 as I am using it. I would be happy to work with you to get setup working.

Steps to reproduce

Already noted in actual behavior.

Environment

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[q-details]
version = "2.2.0"
hash = "c96876dd5075aa453fe731882a863ab8216a9a3a"
date = "2026-04-28T21:13:32.887766Z (6d ago)"
variant = "minimal"

[system-info]
chip = "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz"
total-cores = 6
memory = "23.27 GB"

[system-info.os.linux]
kernel_version = "6.1.0-44-amd64"
id = "debian"
name = "Debian GNU/Linux"
pretty_name = "Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
version_id = "12"
version = "12 (bookworm)"

[environment]
cwd = "/home/USER/Downloads"
cli-path = "/home/USER/Downloads"
os = "Linux"
shell-path = "/usr/bin/bash"
shell-version = "5.2.15"
terminal = "Terminator"
install-method = "unknown"

[env-vars]
DISPLAY = ":0.0"
PATH = "/usr/local/apache-maven/bin:/home/USER/go/bin:/usr/local/go/bin:/home/USER/.local/bin:/home/USER/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games"
QTERM_SESSION_ID = "88659f25cb29488ebeaf969d5f7de1c3"
QT_IM_MODULE = "ibus"
Q_SET_PARENT_CHECK = "1"
Q_TERM = "2.2.0"
SHELL = "/bin/bash"
TERM = "xterm-256color"
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP = "XFCE"
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP = "xfce"
XDG_SESSION_TYPE = "x11"
XMODIFIERS = "@im=ibus"