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What is the smallest host for virtual box?

Posted: 30. Jul 2008, 09:07
by robert74
Hi,
I'm looking to use vbox to create a portable dev platform for myself, and I would like to use it on my eee pc, which only has 512 MB ram. I wonder if anyone can recommend a suitable host OS for vbox that consumes minimal resourses on the host machine.

Many thanks,

Robert.

Posted: 30. Jul 2008, 09:32
by Sasquatch
There are a few options. One is Windows Essentials or something like that. Only downside is that it's not for sale. Other things you can do is look for a Linux distribution like DSL (Damn Small Linux). Please keep in mind that if you have only 512 RAM and you want a dev box, why do you want to run VB too? Perhaps for testing, but other than that, I see no advantage for it.

Posted: 30. Jul 2008, 13:09
by TerryE
If you are working in the Linux world then for guest, running a server / non-X configuration saves you about 128Mb RAM. You can run a Ubuntu LAMP server in 256Mb happily and with some tweaking 192 Mb. For the host your Eee Linux is probably as small as you'll get

Posted: 31. Jul 2008, 03:06
by VirtualFun
Hi, i've got an EeePC, too. I'm using it with a n-lite shrinked version of XP that uses only 103MB RAM after fresh installation.

Today my EEE has got 1024MB of RAM and I virtualized a lot of Windows and Linux systems using VB just to demonstrate people that it's quite possible.

Now to answer your question, DSL (Damn Small Linux) is really the smallest Linux i've ever seen before, I use it in fullscreen 800*600 using AsTrayPlus on host to adjust the resolution and it works fine.

DSL comes with included firefox, most commonly used apps (e.g. text/spreadsheets, players, etc.) and some games.

Everyone is thinking that I installed a linux on my EEE, but they are very surprised if i'm telling that it's just virtualized. They are asking "how could it be?" and i answer: "look at this, everything's possible".

The same way I virtualized the original Xandros of the EEE in VB, just for fun! :)

Just for fun, I'd started a Xandros and a DSL VM parallel at XP host, allocated 256MB RAM to each of the quests.

Everything of that suits in the 4 GB SSD of the EEE 701, no need for SDHCs or USB-Devices.

Finally I would like to recommend antiX, a small Linux Live CD using a 180MB ISO but doesn't need to have a virtual harddisk, very fast and secure if you attend to surf fast and secure.

Just read this:
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page
and that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux