Virtualbox on Windows 98

[Kwijibo]

OK I don't know the exact specs but this machine has a Pentium III processor and probably about 128 megs of RAM. It was originally a high-end Windows 95 PC but it was upgraded to Windows 98 (it's a bit slow, even though it has more than the necessary requirements for Win 98, but then again, it has a lot of junk on it,) anyway I would like to run VirtualBox on it. Only for very old operating systems, though, i.e. DOS, Windows 3.1(ok technically that's part of DOS), perhaps even Windows 95. I would run it on my laptop but I'm a bit apprehensive after what happend last time (I broke Ubuntu). So anyway I was wondering: would it be possible to run VirtualBox on it?

[towo]

Forget it.

[stefan.becker]

Throw the garbage where it belongs too: To the garbage.

[mpack]

To run VirtualBox you would first have to install a modern supported OS, i.e. Windows XP or later, or a supported Linux. You also need enough resources to run the host OS, VirtualBox and the guest OS all in parallel. I doubt that your old PC has enough oomph to run any modern OS well. So to run all of that in parallel? No.

Windows 98 had a built in DOS emulator which, although it looks similar to the modern Windows command console, is actually very different internally. In particular I believe it runs in the CPUs virtual 86 mode. That should work better than any VBox VM for running DOS apps. Obviously you can't install guest OSs, you could only run DOS apps.

[Kwijibo]

OK, thanks for your answer mpak.

That should work better than any VBox VM for running DOS apps. Obviously you can't install guest OSs, you could only run DOS apps.

Which isn't really what I wanted, what I wanted were the old OSes, to experiment with. You mentioned:

To run VirtualBox you would first have to install a modern supported OS, i.e. Windows XP or later, or a supported Linux.

I don't hold out any hope for XP, but what about a "Supported linux"?

It could run Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, or another compact OS. What linuxes are "Supported"?

Thanks.

[towo]

What you want to run as guest, with 128 MB host ram?
That's senseless!

[mpack]

I don't hold out any hope for XP

ISTR from when XP first appeared that it will run (slowly) in as little as 64MB, but does better with 256MB, and runs very sweetly indeed with 512MB... for standard apps that is. To run XP in a VM on such a host (as I do) I really need at least double that host RAM, plus a good speed dual core CPU...

What linuxes are "Supported"?

You can see which Linux hosts are supported by going to the VirtualBox Linux downloads page... and I personally would not hold out much hope that a typical recent PC Linux will be more frugal with your resources than XP will.

I am not quite as negative about your project as the more extreme naysayers here - I have my doubts, but I'd want to see experiments done to confirm them, amd I think they forget that 1 MB RAM is more than enough for a DOS guest, something like (say) 16MB should take you much further along... maybe even to W9x territory. I'm more concerned by your ancient single core CPU and whether you have the capability to run a modern host OS, along with VirtualBox itself of course, which is simply not designed with ancient hardware in mind.

[supremedalek]

If I were to try it, honestly I would pick a linux install without any GUI that fits in the machine. You might have to get the source code and compile it yourself, finding out which extra packages and libraries you will need. Then try a vm, connecting to it through vnc.