virtualbox.org

Hello,

I want to install a Linux OS into my virtual box on my Windows 7 host. These are my laptop hardware configurations :

Manufacturer : Dell
Model : N4050
Processor : Intel (R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20 GHz 2.20 GHz.
Installed memory (RAM) : 2.00 GB
System type : 64-bit OS

How much of RAM/hard disk space should I allocate for my virtual Linux OS (probably CentOS)?
What are the additional things that I have to configure to make this virtual OS run optimally?

Thanks,
AIGINI

Hard to say without knowing how much free RAM you have left: if you installed a 64bit host OS into a PC with 2GB RAM then you may have precious little RAM left for VMs.

Bear in mind that a VM basically means two or more "PCs" sharing the resources of one PC. Each virtual PC needs whatever it needs to get basic performance. So, if you have a 64bit with 2GB RAM then it's probably already a tight squeeze. In short you probably don't have enough RAM to run both guest and host optimally. However, you can try creating a 32bit guest with 512MB RAM, see how it goes. Disk space is usually less of a problem - a main hard disk of say 32GB (dynamic) is usually fine for most 32bit guests.